


City of Lies

by whatsherface



Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Ain't No Slow Burn, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Alternate Universe - Modern with Magic, Angst, Detectives, Explicit Sexual Content, F/M, Grief/Mourning, Mage Rights, Mages and Templars, Modern Thedas, Mystery, Police, Police Procedural, Romance, Smut
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-02
Updated: 2018-03-15
Packaged: 2019-03-12 04:52:37
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 5
Words: 26,728
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13540074
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/whatsherface/pseuds/whatsherface
Summary: Tensions between the magic and non-magic citizens of March City have roiled beneath the surface for years, but the murder of Mayor Justinia Divine threatens to tip the balance toward all-out war. Seeker Cassandra Pentaghast enlists the help of a mysterious mage to learn the truth behind the Conclave disaster, but every clue they follow only leads them further into the twisted, dark heart of the city. Can they find the killer in time to keep the peace?The modern police procedural AU no one asked for. In which Cass is a badass detective and Trevelyan her glib, fire-slinging sidekick. A story in five parts, featuring romance, drama, and alternating points of view. Updated rating. And now complete!





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Still need to finish my canon epic, but this story has hooked its claws into my brain, and there was only one way to get rid of it. So here, have an AU! Since I live in this trash can now.
> 
> Thanks for reading!

Cassandra Pentaghast hated being late. 

Her meeting with Seeker-Commander Corin had run over, and now there was no way she would make it downtown for the start of the Conclave. 

She made an irritated sound and gripped the throttle of her motorcycle, glancing briefly at the line of cars that queued endlessly in her rearview mirror. Road closures around the venue were not helping the usual gridlock. 

The meeting had been pointless, anyway. She’d been removed from everyday Seeker business for the past two years, ever since she’d been seconded to the Mayor’s office. Lucius had droned on about the latest investigations into the internal affairs of the March City Police and Templars, and for what purpose? That wasn’t her job anymore. But it was impossible to say that to her commanding officer. 

A tiresome start to what was certain to be a long day. She did not have high expectations for the Conclave. Too much complaining and not enough action. Mayor Divine had seemingly infinite patience for hearing the grievances of the mages and refereeing their squabbles with the Templars, but if it was up to Cassandra, she would have forced a compromise ages ago. 

_Movement, finally._ She rolled forward, only to come to a stop a few yards later. She blew out another frustrated breath and cast her mind elsewhere. 

Regalyan would be there. A bright spot in a field of black. It’d been years since they were close, but she was pleased when he arrived at City Hall a few months ago as the new mage liaison. He was unchanged, his twinkling green eyes as bright as ever when he smiled at her. Rediscovering their friendship had been a joy, and a small part of her hoped they could rekindle something more… 

_Stop._ It was useless to think about things that would never happen. Their work had pulled them apart before, and nothing about that had changed. If anything, the status of mages in this city had grown worse since then, not better. Anyway, romance was not something that happened in her real life. That’s what literature was for. The latest volume of _Swords and Shields_ lay half-finished on her kitchen table, waiting for her to unwind tonight over a glass of wine. 

At the moment, that felt a very long way away. 

A loud boom echoed from the heart of the Haven district, in the very direction she was headed. Instinctively, she knew something terrible had happened. 

_Justinia. Galyan._

She flipped on her siren and veered into the space between lanes. No traffic would stop her now. 

\---

The area around the Temple Hotel in downtown March City was pure chaos. Cassandra parked a few blocks away and continued on foot, elbowing through the crowd of gawking onlookers. She flashed her badge at the patrolman guarding the barrier, and he waved her through. 

She stopped in her tracks as the building came into view. Smoke poured from the blown out windows of the third floor conference room where the Conclave was taking place. Had taken place. Fear clutched at her heart. 

She covered her nose with her sleeve and squinted, scanning the scene for anyone she knew. A tall blonde man in a grey suit stood in front of the entrance, barking orders at uniformed officers who scurried to do his bidding. Beside him, a dark-haired woman in a smart blue and gold dress bawled into a handkerchief. 

Cassandra picked her way toward them, dodging firefighters and paramedics busy with their work. The latter carried a man in a stretcher, his whole body covered in severe burns. Her internal panic jumped a notch higher. 

“Cassandra,” the blonde man breathed in relief as he wrapped her in a hug. “Thank the Maker you’re alive. When I heard the alarm, I feared the worst.”

“I’m fine, Cullen,” she replied, nearly shouting to be heard over the wailing sirens. “Saved by a meeting with Lucius.” She looked up at the building again. “What happened?”

Detective Cullen Rutherford shook his head and put his hands on his hips, following her gaze to the smoking windows. “There was an explosion just after ten this morning. As far as we can tell at this point, it was a small incendiary device. The blast was localized to the meeting room. Rather potent, though--fire burned for nearly an hour. They’re only just getting it under control.”

“Any survivors?” she asked, worried she knew the answer already. 

“If they were in that room? No.”

Before she could absorb the full weight of his words, the dark-haired woman sobbed loudly and threw herself into Cassandra’s arms. “There, there, Josie,” she said, awkwardly patting her friend on the back. A poor attempt at comfort. 

Josephine Montilyet, Mayor Divine’s Chief of Staff, straightened and searched in vain for a dry spot on the handkerchief she had twisted between her fingers. 

“I- I could have been there,” she said shakily. “I ran back to the office to collect some documents, and- and- Oh, Justinia!”

She sobbed again, and then, as if she suddenly remembered something, she gasped and clutched Cassandra’s arm. “And Regalyan! Oh, Cassandra, I’m so sorry!” 

Cassandra fought back the urge to wrench her arm away and choked down the sob that threatened to tear from her own lungs. Instead, she grit her teeth and summoned the full strength of her professional training and discipline. She walled off the pain. There would be time to mourn, later. 

Turning back to Cullen, she put steel in her voice. “Has anyone claimed responsibility? Any idea who did this or why?”

“No one has stepped forward yet, but there are any number of people who didn’t want the Conclave to succeed,” Cullen sighed. He shook his head again. “That’s what I don’t understand. There was so much security for this meeting… We prepared for weeks. I don’t know how this could have slipped past us.”

He continued, meeting her gaze. “There is one man we’ve taken into custody. The doorman said he saw him exit the hotel just before the explosion and run back in afterwards. We found him at the scene.”

“Where is he?” she asked sharply. 

“We’re taking him to the precinct for questioning as we speak.”

“I want a shot at him.”

“You’ll get it,” he nodded.

They lapsed into silence, watching the building continue to smolder. Ashes fell from the sky like grim snowflakes. 

Tears stung her eyes. Whether from smoke or loss, she couldn’t say. 

\---

Cassandra stood in the observation room and flipped through the thin file in her hands. _Owain Alexander Trevelyan. Age 34. Freelance journalist. March City born and raised. Ostwick District address._

She huffed and tossed the folder on the table. There was absolutely nothing remarkable here. Nothing to explain why he was at the Conclave. Nothing to suggest any kind of connection at all. 

They had been at this for hours. Cullen had been in and out of the interrogation room, going over the events of the morning again and again. The man gave them nothing. But as their only lead at the moment, they were reluctant to let him go. 

_Who are you? What were you doing at the Conclave?_ Her eyes bored into his skull through the mirrored glass. As if he could sense her eyes on him, he turned, and for a moment he seemed to look directly at her. His dark grey eyes were hard and inscrutable, any hidden depths shut against her searching gaze. 

He couldn’t really see her, of course. He looked away a few seconds later and fished a small silver lighter from the pocket of his trenchcoat. She watched as he toyed with it, flipping the lid open with his thumb and watching the flame burn for a moment before snapping it shut again. _Flip, snap._

She studied him through the glass. He was neatly dressed in a trim navy suit and white shirt, typical business tie, simple but elegant brown shoes. He was as tall as Cullen but less broad. His dark brown hair was cropped close on the sides. On top, it stuck out where he had run his fingers through it during the questioning. 

His face was all angles, sharp jaw and cheekbones, perpetually skeptical brows. He might have been handsome, if not for an overly long nose and the odd scar that marred his right cheek. Though perhaps she was in no position to judge facial scars. 

The door opened. Cullen shut it behind him and leaned his forearms on the back of one of the chairs. She looked at him expectantly. 

He began with an exasperated sigh. “Still nothing. I’ve had Jim run all our databases, but there’s nothing on this guy. He’s almost too clean.”

“He must know something,” she insisted. “Or have seen something.”

“We’ve been over it a million times. And our time is running out. We can only keep him till the end of the day without charging him. Meanwhile, I’ve got everyone banging on my door asking if we have any suspects. Mages want answers, Templars are out for blood. Both sides lost a lot of friends in that explosion.”

His phone rang in his pocket. He pulled it out, checked the number, and scowled. “Media’s been driving me crazy,” he muttered, silencing the call. 

“Let me in there,” she offered. “I’ll see what I can do.” He didn’t have to. Technically, she had no jurisdiction here. 

“Be my guest, Madam Seeker,” he chuckled, dipping into a bow and stepping out of her way. “And good luck.”

\---

Owain reached up to loosen his tie and, while he was at it, scraped his hand along his jaw. He glanced at his watch again and sighed, leaning forward to tap his fingers on the metal table. For the hundredth time, he swung his eyes around the room. No windows. Grey, institutional cinder block. Flickering fluorescent bulb. It was cold in here, and he was starving. By design, probably. 

He needed to get out of here, and the less information he could divulge about himself in the process, the better. The station was crawling with Templars, and he did not want them to know that the suspicious man found at the scene of the explosion was a mage. He might not leave in one piece. Or at all. 

Even if he was their counterpart, in a way. As an officer in the Circle Investigative Bureau, his job was to look into crimes among the magically-inclined citizens of March City. He’d joined straight from the military after the Blight ten years ago, when mages finally won the freedom to live outside the academies. Now, with anti-magic sentiment on the rise and the Templars growing increasingly brutal in their enforcement, it was even more critical to handle mage crimes amongst themselves, whenever possible. 

Not that anyone would believe he was who he said he was anyway. He had purposely left his credentials at home that morning. Easier to maintain cover if he was searched. Though he hadn’t planned on being detained like this.

He hadn’t planned on being at the Conclave at all. Grand Enchanter Fiona called him into her office only yesterday and tasked him with attending. He was to be as invisible as possible and keep his eyes and ears open. For what, she didn’t say. 

He was used to these kinds of assignments, though they rarely came from so far up the chain. He’d headed to Haven expecting an easy day babysitting the mage delegates. How wrong that turned out to be. 

He thought back to the events of that morning. He’d stood at the perimeter, leaning against the window and nursing a cold hotel muffin. He’d watched as the attendees milled about the room, mages and Templars talking amongst themselves, few bothering to bridge the divide so early in the day. 

The mages he knew, either by sight or their files, and the Templars were easy to pick out, even the ones who weren’t in uniform. They all took L to fuel their mage-hunting powers, and he could almost smell the drug pulsing in their veins. That left the Mayor and her staff and a handful of observers, none of whom looked particularly suspicious. 

But as the crowd sat for the opening speeches, a middle-aged elven man had slipped through the doors. Maybe it was instinct, or the accumulated years of experience on the job, but something compelled Owain to notice this man. He was tall for an elf, even with the slight stoop in his shoulders. He was dressed in a vague sort of uniform and stood for a moment, shifting his eyes over the crowd and whispering something into an earpiece. A moment later, he disappeared the same way he had come. 

Owain followed, losing him for a moment in the empty hallway. Then the door to the stairwell clicked shut, and he wrenched it back open. Leaning over the railing, he looked down and was met with a cold stare from the flight below. 

The stairs opened onto the lobby. He’d almost slipped running across the polished stone. He’d burst out the front doors and found himself on the street, in the middle of an ordinary workday morning in central Haven. The doorman had clicked his tongue in annoyance, and a passer-by grazed his shoulder as he rushed past. Of the elf, there was no sign. 

Owain stood there, catching his breath, until a deafening blast split the air, a roar he could hear in his very bones. When he opened his eyes, he looked up at the third story. Where he had stood not ten minutes earlier was now flame and smoke and shards of broken glass. 

Everything after that happened in slow motion. It was like a dream. A nightmare, rather, his limbs moving of their own accord, his ears filled with a ringing that drowned out thought. He remembered running back inside, retracing his steps even as everyone else did the opposite, as if he could do anything to help. Or maybe he just needed to see for himself. He made it all the way up to the hall door, where the flames drove him back.

The sound of a door opening in the present broke through his thoughts, and he looked up, expecting Detective Rutherford back for another attempt. Though the man had introduced himself as March City PD, there was a whiff of Templar about him that set Owain on edge. 

But it wasn’t the detective. Instead, a tall, severe-looking woman entered and pushed the door closed with her hip. Her dark hair was cut short. She was dressed in skinny black trousers and a crisp white button-up, the sleeves rolled to her elbows. Tucked under her arm was a thin manila folder, and in her hands, two steaming foam cups. Coffee, by the smell.

She set one of the cups in front of him and sat across the table. He flicked his eyes doubtfully at the color of the coffee and then back at her. Clearly, she meant it as a peace offering. He took a sip, to be polite. It was cloyingly sweet. 

“Where’s Rutherford?” he asked.

“My name is Cassandra Pentaghast,” she began, ignoring his question and pausing to sip at her own cup, making a small sigh of satisfaction at the taste. “I am a Seeker of Truth. Do you know what that means?”

_A Seeker? Now this was interesting._ He narrowed his eyes at her but said nothing. He had a feeling it didn’t matter whether he answered or not. He was right.

“We oversee the Templars as well as the police,” she continued. “We root out corruption in their ranks. Sometimes, as in your situation, we are called to consult on particularly difficult cases.”

“I’m not sure mine is that complicated.”

“I will judge that,” she said curtly, flipping the folder open and making a show of perusing its contents, even though she’d probably already read it cover to cover. He smirked at that. Cops were all the same. Even him. 

“Tell me about yourself, Mr. Trevelyan,” she drawled, looking at the pages of his file instead of at him. “What brought you to the Conclave?”

“A good story,” he shrugged. “Mayor Divine brokering peace between the mages and Templars is possible history in the making. Who wouldn’t want to witness that?”

“You’re a writer,” she said, raising her eyes to his. They were a dark not-quite-brown. Hazel, he decided. Pretty. 

“Mm. Freelance.”

“Did someone employ you to cover the Conclave?”

“I was hoping to get it published after the fact,” he replied, pasting a sheepish grin on his face. “Business has been slow.”

She frowned. “Why weren’t you on the security list? Your name was not on the roster.”

“I was a last minute replacement. Someone dropped out, and I guess I got lucky.”

She squinted at him, clearly dissatisfied with his answer. “Lucky,” she repeated, rising from her chair to pace around the room. “And I suppose it was also luck that you survived the explosion when everyone else perished?”

“You could say that,” he quipped, turning his head to keep her in view. “Though some might call it Providence. I’m not a praying man, myself.”

Her frown deepened. “Why did you run outside? And then back in? What did you hope to accomplish at the scene?”

He considered telling the truth but decided it would only precipitate more questions, ones he wasn’t prepared to answer. He pulled his mouth in a flat line and shrugged again. 

“Had to make a phone call. You know how reception is terrible in those concrete buildings. As as for running back in, I don’t really know. Delusions of heroism, maybe. Thought I could help.” That part was true, at least. 

“And you didn’t see anything suspicious? Anything that could explain what happened?”

“No.”

She crossed her arms and scowled. “I don’t believe you.”

He smirked. “Sounds like a personal problem.”

Without warning, she slammed her hand on the table in front of him. He flinched and jolted backwards, genuinely startled. Coffee splashed from his untouched cup and pooled on the worn steel surface. 

“I don’t like your attitude, and I don’t like your story.” Palms flat on the table, she brought her face within inches of his. Her eyes flashed dangerously. “I think you are lying. I think you were at the Conclave for a reason, and if you were not involved in that explosion, then you saw someone who was.”

Threats only ever made him more defiant. He stared coldly back at her. 

“Am I under arrest?” he asked after a tense pause. He glanced at his watch again. “If not, I’d like to go home.”

—-

Back on the other side of the glass, Cassandra kicked a chair viciously across the room. 

“I told you you wouldn’t get anything out of him,” Cullen said, leaning against the door. 

“Don’t be smug, detective,” she said, turning to glare at him. “He’s hiding something, I know it.”

“With all due respect, Seeker, that’s not going to cut it for protocol. If we don’t get something in the next hour or so, he walks.”

She grunted and looked through the glass. Trevelyan had the lighter out again. 

“Can we re-check the list? He said he was a last minute add...”

She paused as the door in the fishbowl opened. A man in a Templar uniform entered and closed the door behind him. 

“Who is that?”

Cullen stepped closer, squinting. “I don’t know…”

She turned the speaker on. 

“A detective, a Seeker, and now a Templar?” Trevelyan sneered. “They’re really scraping the bottom of the barrel here.”

The man said nothing but moved closer. His hand drifted to the weapon at his hip, and Trevelyan’s posture changed abruptly. He bolted to his feet, his eyes locked on the man’s face. 

“You. How did you-” 

The man didn’t answer. Instead, he removed his gun from its holster and clicked the safety, raising it squarely at Trevelyan with steady hands. 

“In war, victory,” he began in a low monotone. “In peace, vigilance. In death…”

Cullen was already pounding on the interrogation room door. Cassandra was half a step behind him. 

“Shit! He must have locked it.” Cullen fumbled with the ring of keys from his pocket. 

Cassandra beat her fists against the door as her heart thrashed in her chest. They were about to lose their only witness, and there was nothing she could do about it. All she could do was watch the scene unfold through the tiny window, and she hated it. 

Inside the room, Trevelyan moved faster than should have been possible, closing the distance between him and the intruder. He was on him in a blink, seizing the man’s hand and twisting the gun away. It fell to the floor, where he kicked it into a corner. But the stranger was far from subdued. He kneed Trevelyan in the stomach, and he doubled over, hitting his head on the edge of the table. 

The man pulled a knife from his belt and stabbed wildly. Once, twice, three times. Trevelyan tried to block with his arms and grabbed at the man’s wrists, finally catching hold as he brought the blade up to Trevelyan’s neck. 

“Cullen!” Her voice raised to an anxious pitch. 

The struggle continued. Trevelyan’s face twisted with effort, and blood dripped between his fingers as the point of the knife hovered dangerously close to his throat. His opponent was gaining ground. Her heart sank as he closed his eyes and appeared to let go, freeing one of his hands to thrust his palm at the man’s chest. But then, with a loud bang and a flash of light, the assailant was thrown back against the wall and erupted into sudden flames. 

Cullen finally succeeded with the door, and they charged in to find the intruder convulsing on the tile floor, his body on fire. The tiny room filled with the sour smell of burning flesh and human excrement. 

The detective ran into the hall and returned with a fire extinguisher. He doused the flames, but it was clear that the man, whoever he was, was dead. 

Trevelyan collapsed into his chair. He gulped in air and clutched at the cuts on his arms and hands. Blood spotted the fabric of his coat. 

Cassandra stared at him, still a bit in shock, and he stared right back. His eyes were exhausted and pained, but steady. There was no apology there. 

“You are a mage,” she said. 

He just looked at her, neither confirming nor denying. It didn’t matter--she meant it as a fact.

“But you are not in the registry. An apostate, then.” That would explain much. The evasion, his presence at the Conclave. Still, he did not reply. 

As the smoke cleared, Cullen flipped the body with his foot. Taking a pen from his pocket, he used it to push the hat off the man’s head and studied his half-burned face. 

“I don’t know where he got this uniform, but he certainly wasn’t a Templar. At least, not one I know.”

“An elf,” she observed, drawing near for a better look. Her eyes scanned the front of his clothing, less damaged where the flames were smothered against the floor. She spotted a small silver pin catching the light near his collar and plucked it from the uniform. Still warm between her fingers. It was a griffon, rendered in considerable detail. 

“Do you think he’s a Grey Warden?” Cullen asked. “He did recite their motto before he attacked.”

“He was at the Conclave,” said Trevelyan, breaking his silence. “I followed him from the room. That’s why I was outside.”

Cassandra wheeled on him, her temper flaring. _I knew it. Lying little shit._ “Anything else you would like to share, now that we’re being honest?”

“He was talking to someone on an earpiece. He wasn’t working alone.”

“Not surprising,” Cullen mused. “Hell of a job for one person. But why would a Warden want to sabotage the Conclave? Murder the Mayor?”

“That I do not know,” she answered crisply. “But I do know that an apostate with fire magic has ample motive and means to cause an explosion like that.”

Trevelyan narrowed his eyes at her. “I told you what I know. I wasn’t even in the room when it happened.”

“You also spent the entire day lying to us.”

“So that’s it? What am I, a suspect or a witness?”

“Both. Either way, you are not going home tonight.”

“Someone just tried to murder me.”

“We will take you into protective custody.”

Trevelyan stood and staggered toward her. His face was incredulous. “Are you joking? With all the _real_ Templars in this building? That’s a death sentence.”

“He’s right, Cass,” Cullen reluctantly agreed. “If word gets out about this, I may not be able to protect him.”

She made a frustrated sound and looked at Trevelyan, whose hands were still covered in his own blood. She felt a pang of guilt that he’d nearly died in their keeping, while they were only in the next room. Maybe she shouldn’t be surprised that anyone brazen enough to murder the Mayor and a roomful of innocents wouldn’t hesitate to tie up loose ends in the middle of a police station. But if she couldn’t trust the Templars or the police to keep this man safe, there was only one other option. 

“Fine. Then I will take him.”

“What?” The men protested in unison. 

“You,” she said, turning to Trevelyan and ignoring his confused frown. “You are coming with me.”

Instinct had gotten her this far, and she prayed it wouldn’t fail her now.


	2. Chapter 2

Of all the places in the world, Owain did not expect to find himself here tonight, clinging to the back of a motorcycle, feeling the rush of wind on his face as he sped through the dark streets of March City. 

She rode too fast, the Seeker, skirting cars and cutting corners at white-knuckle speed, but he was beginning to learn that bold and brash was simply the way she did things. Hours earlier, she’d been ready to throttle him, and now he had his arms wrapped about her waist and her hips between his knees. He tried not to think too hard about that. 

Minutes later, they pulled into the garage of a tall, modern high-rise, all steel dressed in glass. Maybe it was the cool night air or the change of scenery, but when they reached her apartment, the Seeker’s anger had cleared. She was direct, but not unkind. 

She hung her leather jacket by the door and spoke to him over her shoulder. 

“Come. We need to take care of those wounds.”

He shed his own coat and suit jacket and followed her to the bathroom, where he perched on the edge of the tub and carefully rolled his torn shirt sleeves. She sat beside him and dipped a cotton ball in antiseptic. She nodded at him, and he held an arm out, willing himself not to flinch at the sting of alcohol on his cuts. Thankfully, they didn’t seem too deep. Her hand was warm against his, a foil to the cool trail she swabbed across his skin. 

He watched her as she worked. Up close, he noticed things that had escaped his initial impression. The thin braid that nestled like a crown in her short hair. The deep scar that marked her left cheek. The full bow of her lips as they pursed in concentration. Seeker Pentaghast was not _pretty_ in the usual sense, but there was something striking about her all the same. 

Feeling his eyes on her, she looked up and fixed him with a glare. “Stop staring at me.”

He smirked for a second and made a point of turning away to focus on the small window in the shower wall. But after a moment, he brought his eyes back. 

“Do you do this a lot?” he asked.

“What?”

“Take home injured strangers and patch them up.”

“Never.” She released his arm and held out her hand for the other. He obliged.

“Oh? Does that make me special?” 

She said nothing, but the next swipe of antiseptic was less gentle than the ones before. He winced slightly. 

“Your friend was right, you know,” he went on, undeterred. 

“What are you talking about?”

“Rutherford. He was right about this being dangerous. You don’t know anything about me. I could be a lunatic. A serial killer.”

She reached around him for the ointment and bandages. Then she looked him in the eyes, and he thought he saw a flicker of amusement there. The barest twitch of her lips. 

“Well, are you?” she demanded.

He breathed a short laugh that ended on another smirk. “No.”

She arched her eyebrows in a way that said "I told you so" and bent to her work again. 

He said nothing else for a while. _Did she feel it, too?_ This tenuous thread of trust that had formed between them, unearned. Maybe it was because she let him into her home, or because she was holding his hand. Or maybe he just hit his head harder than he thought. 

She finished with his wounds and leaned back, running her eyes over him again. They snagged on his forehead, just above his temple. He bent his neck to give her a better view. 

“Looks like you scratched yourself on that table. Don’t move.”

His eyes searched hers as she mopped the blood from his face. 

“Do you really think I did it? The Conclave, I mean.”

Her fingers stopped moving. She sat back and studied him for a moment. 

“No.”

He frowned. “Then why did you say I was a suspect?”

“Leverage,” she said matter-of-factly. “You are still a witness, and you may have seen something else that will prove to be important. You survived the Conclave, something no one else can say. So I cannot afford to let you out of my sight.”

He wasn’t sure what to say to that. 

Her phone rang. 

“Delivery is here,” she said, moving toward the door. “I’m going downstairs to meet him.”

He collected the used cotton balls, tinged pink with his blood, and tossed them in the trash can. In the mirror, he examined the small gash on his forehead as he washed his hands. Not so bad, really. Just a lot of blood. He dried his hands on the towel and walked out into the hallway. 

It was a small apartment. One bedroom, on the right. To the left, the hall opened onto a living area, and at the far end, a kitchen. The living room was efficiently furnished--all the essentials, few frills. The windows looked out on a cityscape of lights. 

His eyes were drawn to the wooden bookcase in the corner. Most of it was packed with cheap paperbacks. Romances, judging by the covers. Owain chuckled to himself. Did a secret romantic live in that prickly shell?

The top shelf held a heavy copy of the Chant of Light and a few Andrastian figurines. A couple of framed photos took up the second.

One photo was old, the colors faded in a way that marked its vintage. In it, the Seeker was a girl with a ponytail standing next to a tall young man with the same dark hair and hazel eyes. Her brother, he guessed. The man propped his elbow on the top of her head, while she held her hands on her hips. They grinned at the camera. 

The other picture was actually a series of four, like the kind you’d get from a photobooth. These images were more recent, a decade old at most. The Seeker was a young woman here, and the man she was with was carelessly handsome, his green eyes sparkling as the two of them mugged for the camera, laughing, kissing, pulling faces. In the last frame, she smiled at him, and it was positively radiant. Owain hardly recognized the woman from the interrogation room. Suddenly, he felt like he was trespassing, like he had tread somewhere he didn’t belong. 

He stepped back and sat on the couch, taking his phone from his pocket to check his messages. Nothing urgent, but it occurred to him that he should probably call the Bureau, especially given his assignment that day. He dialed the number for Fiona’s office, only to hear the click of a cut line. Not even a voicemail. That struck him as odd, and he furrowed his brows, staring at the number on his phone. 

He heard the turn of the doorknob and slipped the phone back in his pocket. Seeker Pentaghast returned carrying a paper bag spotted with grease. 

“I hope you like noodles,” she said, setting the bag down on the glass coffee table. 

His stomach rumbled in response. He was too hungry to care. 

They ate in silence for a while, sitting on opposite ends of the couch. The Seeker turned on the television, and the screen filled with images from the Conclave. Black smoke rising between tall buildings, blotting the blue morning sky. A slow pan of the charred conference room. Photos of the mayor and other victims. 

_“Thirty-four people are dead following an explosion in downtown Haven this morning, including March City Mayor Justinia Divine,”_ the anchorwoman narrated over the footage. _“Still no word from authorities on who was responsible for the Conclave disaster, while grief and outrage rise in March City tonight.”_

They cut to clips of candlelight vigils at the Templar headquarters and outside the College of Enchanters. Laments and impassioned speeches from both sides. 

Now a press conference with Seeker-Commander Lucius Corin. 

_“We have a person of interest at this time, but no suspects.”_ Corin read from his prepared statement while cameras flashed and reporters shoved microphones at his face. _“We urge calm and ask for your patience as we sort through the evidence. All of our information indicates this was an isolated incident. We have no reason to believe there will be further attacks. The March City Police is committed to ensuring the safety of our citizens...”_

The television faded to black as Seeker Pentaghast tossed the remote aside with a huff. Owain noticed that she’d barely touched her food, just rearranged it in the carton. 

“Was that your boss?” he asked.

“Technically, yes.”

He arched a brow, so she continued. “I am a Seeker, but I work for the Mayor. _Worked_ for the Mayor.” She paused for a moment, looking distant. “I should have been there, at the Conclave.”

“I’m sorry,” he said, not knowing what else to say. “Did you know her well?”

“Well enough. Justinia was kind but strong-willed. She had a vision for this city. She truly believed we could do better, that we could build peace between the mages and the rest of us.”

Owain twisted his mouth with doubt. He’d heard this talk of unity before, after the Blight, after they’d defeated a common threat together. But look how long that lasted. Barely ten years, and they were at each other’s throats again. It was a nice picture, sure. But in a place as fucked up as March City? Human memory was too short and hopelessly flawed. 

“Do you really think that’s possible? That we won’t just tear each other apart again?”

“I did, yes,” the Seeker replied, sounding weary. “But after today, who knows.” 

“What next then?” he asked after a pause. 

“Cullen and I will find out who did this. The man who attacked you, the Warden. He is our only lead.”

“Let me help.”

“You?” She frowned as if considering his offer. 

Why not him? A lot of important mages died in that explosion, and it happened on his watch. He was there first hand, should have been among the dead if not for a moment’s impulse. Maybe Fiona sent him to the Conclave for just this purpose. 

“Or you could just let me go home,” he quipped when she didn’t respond. 

She ignored his attempt at levity. “It will be dangerous.”

“I can take care of myself.”

She met his eyes and seemed to relent. 

“In any case, there is nothing more to do tonight,” she sighed. “You should get some rest.” 

She rose and went to put her food in the kitchen, reappearing from the hallway. 

She tossed him a blanket and a pillow. “There are towels in the bathroom,” she added, before turning toward her bedroom.

“Goodnight, Seeker,” he said. She paused and looked back at him. One more flash of hazel.

“Goodnight, Trevelyan.”

\---

Cassandra heard the shower come on just as she finished her morning prayers. She lay back on her bed to wait. 

Had she done the right thing in protecting this man, in letting him into her home? Objectively, it was a terrible idea. Trevelyan himself had reminded her of that. But she could think of no other way to keep him safe and within easy reach. It needed to be done.

What she couldn’t justify, however, was the strange impulse to trust him. It made no sense from any angle, though it did seem to go both ways. He had not tried to run, and after revealing his magic, he’d been nothing but cooperative. As for her safety, well, he might be dangerous, but so was she. 

It would be easier to give it all up and turn him over to Cullen or Seeker-Commander Corin. The investigation into what happened yesterday morning wasn’t really her problem, in an official sense. Not her job anymore. 

But the Conclave was more than a professional obligation. It was personal in so many ways. Mayor Divine and everything she worked for, up in literal smoke. Cassandra herself should have died there, if everything had gone to plan. She’d lost friends. She’d lost Galyan. It still didn’t feel real that they were gone. 

She owed it to them to find out what happened, to catch those who were responsible and make them pay. She couldn’t bring them back, but she could bring them justice. 

The water stopped. She waited a few more minutes, more than enough time for him to clear out before she made her own way to the bathroom. 

Except she miscalculated. She opened her bedroom door and stepped out, only to come face-to-face with Trevelyan. He was wearing nothing except a towel slung low around his hips. They both froze. 

In spite of herself, she took in the sight of him. He was unexpectedly well-built for a mage--strong arms and broad shoulders, a solid chest that tapered to a narrow waist. Odd scarring like the one on his cheek mottled his right shoulder and half of his torso. The rest was covered in a scatter of dark hairs that disappeared into his towel.

She stopped herself before she could get any further and looked pointedly away. Warmth bloomed across her face. 

“Sorry! I just… I forgot my…” he stumbled over the words and gave up, darting back into the bathroom to retrieve his clothes. 

She stole another glance as he reappeared, and as her eyes caught his, his embarrassment seemed to slide into something else. She could have sworn that was a bit of a smirk as he turned and strode (strutted?) back to the living room. 

She huffed with annoyance. _Impudent man._ She went into the bathroom and shut the door a little too hard. 

The shower failed to wash the images from her memory, but at least it cooled the blush from her cheeks. She finished, dressed, and walked down the hall to find Trevelyan seated at the kitchen table, blessedly fully clothed. 

He looked up at her approach and smiled, which struck her as particularly suspicious. She narrowed her eyes at him as she stepped around the table to take the other chair. 

His hair was damp and unruly, and he had produced a pair of glasses from somewhere. The lack of a razor had spared the stubble that was making itself known around his jawline. Otherwise, it rather looked like he was making himself at home. He’d made coffee, a steaming mug already waiting for her as she sat down. He nodded at it, and she took a sip. It was creamy, sweet, and surprisingly perfect. 

“How do you know how I like my coffee?” she asked.

“A lucky guess,” he replied, smirking as he raised his own cup to his lips. He took his coffee black, she noticed. He kept looking at her, grinning. It made her uncomfortable, so she shifted in her chair and frowned at him. 

“Why are you still smiling?”

He breathed a short laugh. "Oh, I've just been passing the time with some reading." He tapped his fingers on her copy of _Swords and Shields_ laying on the corner of the table.

She lunged for the book, but he was too fast for her, snatching it out of reach just as her fingers grazed the glossy cover. She glared at him, and he grinned even wider.

"I was just getting to the good part," he teased, opening the book somewhere in the middle and pushing his glasses up his nose. "Don't you want to know what happens to the Guard-Captain and her lover? What they do in the--"

"Ugh! Don't tell me!" She cut him off, standing and holding her hand out for the book.

His smile grew softer, and he looked at her curiously for a moment. Then he closed the book and handed it to her. She grabbed it with a huff and placed it safely on the windowsill behind her chair.

"You really do like those, huh?"

"They're terrible,” she sighed. “But also magnificent."

He was still smirking on the other side of the table. _Insufferable._

"Pretend you don't know this about me," she snapped, sipping her coffee aggressively.

Her phone buzzed on the table. It was Cullen, checking to see that she was ok. She tapped out a terse response and set it down again.

"So are you and Rutherford…?"

"Are we what?"

"You know, like the Guard-Captain and…"

"Ugh,” she groaned for the second time in five minutes. She rolled her eyes. “Can't a man and woman simply be professional colleagues? Why is the assumption that there is always something more?"

Trevelyan shrugged. "I'm just asking. You seem to get along well, that's all."

"We are friends, nothing more,” she explained, still nettled that she even had to. “We met when he was still a Templar in Kirkwall. He served there during the Anders incident, and I was assigned to that investigation. When he decided he wanted to leave, I helped him get a transfer to the Haven police precinct."

"So he's a former Templar?” Trevelyan said with mild surprise. “I didn't know they let people quit."

"It is rare," she acknowledged. "The withdrawal alone is enough to change most people's minds. But he was determined, and I think he's through the worst of it now."

Trevelyan looked thoughtful for a moment, holding his mug in both hands. 

"And you worked on the Anders thing? That must have been a shitshow."

"Oh, it was a disaster," she said, remembering the scene, not unlike the Conclave just yesterday. The Kirkwall Templar district headquarters, reduced to rubble and ash. "You can thank him for all the problems we have now between the mages and Templars."

Trevelyan furrowed his brows and looked down into his cup. "I don't know about that. The Templars had been abusing mages in Kirkwall long before. They were branding people Tranquil without due process, on the barest shred of evidence. Brand first, ask questions later. It was a flashpoint on both sides."

"They must have felt it was the only way to protect people from magic. Better than killing, at least?"

"If you just want to protect people, there are better ways,” he said, with unexpected force. “Do you have any idea how terrifying that is to a mage? To cut off not just your connection to the Fade, but also your personality, your feelings, everything that makes you you? It's worse than death. Cruelty to the highest degree."

She didn’t know what to say in the face of his sudden conviction. His grey eyes fixed on hers, clear and earnest. She considered his words. Perhaps he was right. 

She sighed. “Well, that was what the Conclave was supposed to solve. Now I fear things will be as bad as they ever were.”

“Which is why we need to find who was really responsible,” he said, taking a long pull of coffee. “Maker, I hope it wasn’t a mage,” he added under his breath. “So where do we start? The Wardens?”

“Yes,” she replied, thoughtfully. “We will meet with my contact. He may be able to say if our mystery elf was one of theirs and shed light on a potential motive.” 

Then she realized what he’d said and what she had taken for granted. 

At what point had it become _we?_

\---

The accumulated stench of stale beer and cigarettes assaulted her senses as she opened the door and only intensified as she descended into the basement establishment. The bar was nearly empty at this hour. A forgettable place, where you were more likely to find yourself at the end of the night than at lunchtime. 

Cassandra made her way to the rear and slid into a high-backed booth opposite a weathered, bearded man just tucking into a plate that struggled to contain a burger and a small mountain of french fries. A half-finished ale sat near his right hand. Trevelyan scooted into the booth after her. The vinyl bench was slightly sticky to the touch. The table was no improvement, so she settled on crossing her arms across her chest. 

“Didn’t expect I’d hear from you today, Seeker,” the man said by way of greeting.

“Neither did I, Blackwall.”

His eyes flicked to Trevelyan. “Who’s your friend?”

“He’s not—”

“Owain Trevelyan.” The mage introduced himself, shooting his hand across the table. 

Blackwall grasped it briefly before bringing his attention back to her. “And to what do I owe this honor?”

She opened her mouth to begin, but stopped when a waitress materialized at the end of the table looking like she had already done them a favor just by showing up. 

The waitress quirked a brow at Trevelyan, who pointed at Blackwall. “I’ll have everything he’s having,” he said, flashing a toothy smile. 

Cassandra scowled at him. They did not have time for this. He just curled his lip faintly and shrugged in response. 

The waitress cleared her throat and stared coolly at Cassandra, who was wasting her time, apparently. 

“Water,” she said curtly, ignoring the woman’s eyeroll as she stalked off toward the kitchen. 

Cassandra pulled her phone from her pocket and found the photo of the elf from last night. She placed it in front of Blackwall. 

“Do you know this man?”

Blackwall furrowed his brows, picking up the phone for a closer look. Finally, he shook his head and slid the device back across the table. “Never laid eyes on him. Who is he? Or who is he supposed to be?”

“We have reason to believe he may be a Warden,” she replied, taking the griffon pin from her pocket and holding it out to him. “We think he may be connected to what happened yesterday.”

He took the pin from her carefully, spinning it slowly between his thumb and forefinger, watching it catch the scant light. 

“Aye, well that’s genuine. We give these to the new recruits after they pass the joining ceremony. He’s not one of mine, though, I can tell you that. We don’t have many elves in the March City units.”

He handed the trinket back to her, dropping it in her outstretched palm. She tucked it back into her jacket pocket. 

“Could he have come from one of the other branches? Orlais or Ferelden?” 

“Hell, anything’s possible, Seeker,” he chuckled, though not out of humor. “But it’s rare for us to travel so far abroad unless it’s official Warden business, and I’d have heard about that.”

She sighed. So the Warden angle was a dead end, at least for now. She hoped that Cullen was having better luck with the man’s identity. 

The waitress returned with their orders. She set a plate in front of Trevelyan with a vaguely suggestive smile. Cassandra rolled her eyes. A tall plastic cup sloshed down in front of her. 

Trevelyan glanced at her sideways with a slight crinkle at the corner of his eyes. He might have smirked, too, but it was hard to tell as he raised his glass and drained the top third of his ale. 

She sipped tentatively at her water. It tasted like soap. She wrinkled her nose and set it down. 

“How are the Wardens these days, Blackwall?” she asked while the men ate. 

“Short-staffed and underfunded, as usual,” he replied. “Seems to be the normal state of affairs now. The further we get from the Blight, the less glamorous we seem, and the less appreciated we are.”

Cassandra frowned. “I thought Mayor Divine proposed an increase in this year’s budget.”

“That may be, but it hasn’t happened yet,” Blackwall shrugged. “And now, who knows if it ever will? But there has been talk of an outside funder, of late. Some private businessman, offering fancy new weapons and tech.”

This was news to her. “Who is he? And why such an interest in the Wardens?”

“Don’t know. But he’s got deep pockets. They say he’s got ideas, too, about how to prevent future Blights. Something about identifying the source of the corruption, cutting it off before it can spread.”

“Sounds too good to be true,” Trevelyan broke in. He’d been listening intently. “If that was possible, you’d think someone would have figured it out earlier.”

Blackwall shrugged again. “As long as people need lyrium from the Deep Roads to power their cities, we’ll need Wardens to keep us safe from what’s down there. I made a promise to protect. That’s all I need to know. The rest is above my paygrade.” 

Trevelyan finished his food, and they left, thanking Blackwall for his time. Cassandra’s phone rang as they emerged into daylight and very welcome fresh air. It was Cullen.

“I’ve been trying to reach you for the past hour,” he said, sounding annoyed.

“I was underground,” she explained, not as an apology. “What is it?”

“I’ve got a name for our friend from the station last night. His name is Devon Tabris. Address in Wycome. I’ll text it to you.”

“Thanks. I’ll look into it.”

Cullen took a deep breath she could hear over the line. 

“There’s something else you should know,” he went on. “I’m off the case, as of this morning. It’s been reassigned. To the Templars.” 

She furrowed her brows and paused for a moment, letting his words sink in. “Did they give you a reason?”

“No, it came from up high. Even if they did, I don’t think I’d like it.”

“Do they know? About me? About Trevelyan?”

“I didn’t tell them. But it’s only a matter of time before they find out about Tabris. Medical Examiner has him now.”

She sighed with mild relief. Small consolation, really. Trevelyan looked quizzically at her as they stood on the empty sidewalk. 

“Thanks, Cullen.”

“Be careful, Cass. Please don’t do anything dangerous.”

She hung up and lowered the phone from her ear, letting out a short laugh. 

_Dangerous?_ It was a little too late for that.


	3. Chapter 3

The 300 block of Embrium Street in March City’s Wycome district was an uninspiring place. Tired grey apartment buildings huddled together along a narrow street lined with old cars and cracked pavement. Identical to the rest, 350 was exactly halfway along. Its only remarkable characteristic was that they were looking for it. 

They parked the bike in the alley and made their way to the front. There was a rusty callbox and a keypad by the entrance, but Owain tried the door, and it opened. Broken, probably. They were greeted by a small lobby flanked by mailboxes on either side. The green linoleum floor had probably never known a mop. 

The elevator was straight ahead, but a large X taped across its doors advertised its non-working condition, so they took the stairs. Peeling paint on the banister revealed decades’ worth of questionable color choices. The stairwell itself smelled like piss and bleach. Mostly piss. 

They reached the third floor and followed the numbers to the address Cullen sent. Somewhere down the hall a dog barked. 

The door was locked, of course. They knocked, but there was no answer. Seeker Pentaghast pulled a set of tools from an inner pocket and got to work. Owain propped his shoulder against the frame and watched. 

There was a lean grace to the Seeker and the way she moved that he was beginning to find attractive. His eyes followed the long line of her legs and lingered on the curve of her hips. Her jacket rode up as she worked on the door, and he could see the flash of handcuffs hanging from her belt. 

Her gun, he knew, was in a holster under her jacket. She had tried to give him a spare before they left her apartment that morning. She had insisted, pressed it into his hands. He took it, to humor her, and when she wasn’t looking, he left it on the kitchen table. He didn’t need it, was probably safer without it. 

Lockpicking was clearly not her forte. She huffed and clicked her tongue in frustration while the door remained as locked as ever. He leaned over and held his hand out for the tools. She narrowed her eyes but dropped them in his palm anyway, stepping aside to give him space. 

He pushed the pick in and probed, catching the proper pins after a few tries. The bolt slid back with a satisfying click. 

“You just need the right touch,” he said, returning the tools with a smirk.

She grabbed them and rolled her eyes. 

Owain cast a barrier while she pulled her weapon from her side. She nodded at him and turned the knob, pushing the door open slowly. He followed her inside, a spell ready in his hand and senses on high alert. 

It was a tiny one-bedroom. A spare living space with a galley kitchen immediately to the left and a small bedroom further down. They quickly confirmed no one was home. Seeker Pentaghast lowered her gun and locked the door behind them. 

“What are we looking for, exactly?” he asked, extinguishing the flames in his hand. 

“Anything. Anything that proves the connection to the Wardens or the Conclave. Anything that might tell us who he was working with.”

They picked their way through the apartment. It was incredibly ordinary. The furniture probably came with the rental, shabby but neat. The carpet was worn and stained in spots. Surprisingly few personal effects, just the essentials of a single man’s life. Some clothes in the closet, a few books on a shelf. 

Owain took the bedroom while Seeker Pentaghast examined the papers on a small desk in the living room. He ran his hands under the mattress, behind the books on the shelf. Next to the bed was a copy of the Chant of Light. He picked it up and flipped through it. A photo slipped from between the pages, along with a folded sheet of paper that fluttered to the floor. 

He stooped to pick them up. The photo was clearly well-travelled. Its edges were worn and creased, its surface smudged with fingerprints. The subject was a young elven woman. She smiled down at the child in her lap, who sat with his arms out, reaching for the person behind the camera. 

Owain put the photo in his pocket and unfolded the paper. It was a receipt of sorts. A confirmation for a transfer of funds from an unnamed account to the First Bank of Denerim. A considerable sum of money. He re-folded the paper and tucked it away beside the photo. 

There was nothing else of note in the bedroom, so he rejoined the Seeker in the outer room. She was still sifting through the documents on the desk. She handed him a wrinkled sheet. It had obviously been crumpled and smoothed out again. It was a map of sorts, more of a blueprint or floor plan really. It depicted the Temple Hotel, including the third floor conference rooms.

“Well there’s our connection to the Conclave,” he said. “Anything on the Wardens?”

She shook her head. “Nothing, which is strange. You would think he’d have something, some kind of ID, orders, a uniform. There is nothing.”

He handed her the photo and the receipt he'd found in the bedroom. She studied them carefully and frowned. 

The dog barked again. They heard the rattle of keys just outside the door and froze. They glanced quickly at each other. Seeker Pentaghast stuffed the documents in her pocket and hurried to the bedroom, pulling her gun again. Owain followed, pressing his back against the wall where he couldn’t be seen from the door. 

A key turned in the lock, and the door swung slowly open. He could hear two male voices laughing. 

“I can’t believe he sent us to clean up after that fucking knife-ear.”

“You know we always get the shitty jobs. Should’ve let him win at Wicked Grace last night.”

“Tch. That’s the problem with you kids these days. No sense of honor.”

As they moved into view, Owain could see they were Templars, the flaming sword printed clearly on their vests. Something felt off, though. He could sense the L on them, but it had a different character. It felt… louder, somehow. Instead of the customary blue, their badges were pinned on squares of red fabric. 

While he considered these warning signs, the Seeker actually sighed in relief. She signalled to Owain to hold his position, while she quietly maneuvered her badge from under her jacket. She put her gun away and raised her hands, slowly stepping out through the doorway. 

“Stop! Don’t move!” The Templars trained their weapons on her as she entered the room. 

“Officers. I am a Seeker of Truth. You may lower your weapons.” 

They didn’t move. Pentaghast frowned. 

“We don’t know anything about a Seeker investigation here,” said the man on the left, who seemed to be the leader of the two.

“It’s top level clearance.” She held out her badge again. They made no move to look at it. Just continued to keep her at gunpoint. 

“I said, lower your weapons,” she repeated in a growl. 

Something was wrong. She was unarmed, yet they were not backing down. The one who had spoken adjusted his aim at the Seeker, his fingers twitching near the trigger. 

Owain wasn’t about to stand there and let her get shot. He broke cover, stepping out toward the lead Templar and conjuring a great stone fist from the Fade. He launched it forward, and it hit the man in the chest just as he squeezed the trigger. The shot landed somewhere in the ceiling; the Templar landed sprawling over an end table. It splintered beneath his weight. 

The other man shot twice at Seeker Pentaghast, but she had thrown herself behind the couch when Owain emerged from the bedroom. A bullet hit glass, shattering the window in the opposite wall. The dog barked again. 

Owain pivoted and fade-stepped toward the shooter just as he turned the gun on him. He shoved the man’s arm upwards, grabbing it by the wrist and twisting to catch him from behind. He brought his free arm up into a chokehold and slammed the Templar’s hand against the edge of the dining table until he dropped his weapon. With both hands empty now, the man clawed at Owain’s arm, struggling doubly hard to free himself. He was unexpectedly strong. 

“You’ll pay for this, mage!” a voice spat from across the room. 

The first Templar had recovered from the stonefist and was staggering to his feet. His hand reached for his silencer, a specialized Templar weapon that used electrical current to neutralize mages and cut their ties to the Fade, like temporary Tranquility. But before Owain could even contemplate what to do about that, Seeker Pentaghast sprang at the man, ramming him with her shoulder and sending him reeling again. She followed it with a kick to the groin and several sharp blows to his face and jaw. Owain paid just enough attention to be impressed. 

But even with blood streaming from his nose, the Templar seemed to shake it off, dodging her next attack and lunging at the Seeker. He caught her waist and swung her around, throwing her hard against the wall. She cried out in pain, but he gave her no time to recover, bringing his hands up to wrap around her throat. 

Alarms went off in Owain’s brain, but that second of distraction gave his own opponent an opening. The Templar ducked to lower his center of gravity and rushed backwards to crush Owain against the wall. It winded him and knocked his arms loose. The man grabbed him by the coat and flung him at the table, where he landed with a grunt and the faint impression of snapping wood. 

The Templar surged forward, throwing his fist at Owain’s head. He was quick enough to dodge, rolling out of the way as the punch collided with the tabletop. Owain opened his palm and cast a fire spell at the man’s chest. It failed to scratch the Templar’s body armor, but it was enough to buy some space. He followed with another spell, conjuring a burst of flame from the floor. Again, it did little more than scorch the carpet and force the Templar to stumble backwards. 

His opponent reached for the silencer at his belt. If he managed to use it, Owain was finished. So he cast another fireball and charged at the Templar, tackling him to the floor. He caught the man’s hand with both of his, struggling to keep the buzzing electrodes from his own conductive flesh. It was a battle of strength, and he could feel himself losing. The Templar did not seem to tire. 

In a final desperate gambit, Owain freed a hand and threw flame at the man’s face, making him flinch. Then he forced the silencer down with all his weight, directing the shock into the man’s throat. His body jerked a few times and went still. Owain tossed the weapon aside and sat back on his heels, pausing to catch his breath. 

It was suddenly so quiet. He remembered the Seeker and turned to look for her. She was sitting on the floor and leaning back against the wall. Her legs were splayed out in front of her, and she looked exhausted. One hand still gripped what was left of a ceramic table lamp, and the other rubbed gingerly at her own neck. Her attacker lay unconscious on the floor, blood trickling from his temple. 

Their eyes met, and he laughed darkly. _Damn._ He needn’t have worried about her after all. 

He checked the pulse of the Templar beneath him. The voltage was calibrated to neutralize magic, but it could also incapacitate a normal human. Satisfied that his heart was still beating, Owain yanked a pair of handcuffs from the man’s belt and flipped him over, cuffing his wrists behind his back. 

“Did anything seem odd to you?” he asked as the Seeker secured the other Templar. 

She stood and wiped sweat from her forehead with the back of her hand. “They were… unnaturally strong. Pain did not have a normal effect on them.”

“Same here. The drug, its powers. It seemed different. More potent.”

“His eyes were bloodshot. Almost completely red.”

Owain crouched to check their badges. “The red behind the Templar seal- think that’s an accident?”

Pentaghast shook her head. “It can’t be. We should speak with Cullen.”

The sound of a distant siren lifted their heads. They looked at each other and understood it was time to go.

They hurried into the hallway and found an emergency exit at the far end. It took them right into the alley where they parked--the only luck they’d had in hours. 

The motor roared to life, and they sped away, leaving nothing but exhaust to greet the red and blue lights. 

\---

The elevator opened with a ding. Trevelyan entered and leaned on the rail, pressing the back of his head against the steel panelling. Cassandra stepped in after him and waved her key on the sensor, pressing the button for her floor. 

The doors closed, and she looked up to see Trevelyan regarding her with an odd quirk to his lips. A curious energy hung in the air about him, and when she looked in his eyes, they had gone dark and smoky. His stare seemed to pin her in place, quickened the blood in her veins. 

He moved closer, until suddenly he was very close. He put one hand on the rail behind her and the other on her hip, lightly. He closed his eyes and tipped his face toward hers, so near she could feel his breath ghosting over her skin. It sent a pleasant shiver down her spine. When he opened his eyes again, there was so much heat in his look that she would have believed it was more of his magic. 

All his movements were slow, giving her plenty of time to stop him. But she didn’t, and to her surprise, she found that she didn’t even want to. 

Maybe it was the Conclave or the Warden or the Templars, everything that had happened in the past 36 hours, but part of her felt like being reckless, like doing something unwise. So she threw aside her caution and met his look with her own. She breathed in his scent, parted her lips almost unconsciously. 

As if sensing her response, he tightened his hold on her hip and covered her mouth with his. She tasted the hot slick of his tongue and felt the firm twist of his lips against hers. It was intoxicating. 

It was almost too much. She put a hand on his chest and separated them with a gasp. He looked at her softly and curved his lip in a shadow of his usual smirk. Almost too much, but not quite. 

She curled her fingers in his coat and pulled him down for another kiss. He didn’t seem to expect that. It was his turn to gasp, and his eyes went wide before closing again as she slipped deeper into his mouth. A groan rumbled through him, and it woke something answering in her. 

She had forgotten what it was like to want someone. For someone to want her. She had forgotten, but she remembered, and in that moment it became everything. 

The elevator had long since stopped when she remembered where they were. She jabbed her finger at the button to open the doors and walked briskly down the hall with Trevelyan on her heels. He leaned his shoulder against the wall and waited while she took out her keys. She could feel him running his eyes over her, his gaze full of want, and it made her feel naked, for all that she was fully clothed. 

She paused with her hand on the doorknob and smiled at him, slowly. He didn’t smirk back as she thought he would. Instead, his eyes went wide, and his mouth opened, like he meant to speak but couldn't find the words. Then he snapped it shut and looked away, combing his fingers through his hair. 

She pushed the door open and let him in first. Then she closed it behind her and dropped her keys on the table. Trevelyan just stood there with his arms at his sides. His eyes were heavy-lidded but guarded, as if waiting for her to say she still wanted this. Late afternoon sun lit the windows in the living room, casting everything in a soft, shadowy blue. 

And Maker forgive her, but she did want it. She needed it, needed something to remind her that she was alive and real. And here he was, warm and willing. 

So she stopped hesitating and stepped toward him. She pressed her hand to his chest, feeling his heat beneath the fabric of his shirt. He didn’t move, though she could feel potential humming below the surface, held taut by his self-control. 

She snaked her hand up past his collar, over his shoulders and up to the back of his neck. Still, he remained motionless, and she frowned. Doubt crept in. Maybe he had changed his mind? His eyes were dark again, and she looked into them now with a plea. She wet her lips with her tongue and worried the bottom one with her teeth.

She wasn’t sure what it was that made him snap, but all of that explosive energy was suddenly loosed on her, like a spark to fine tinder. He crushed his lips to hers with so much force it made her gasp. He pulled her tight to him, one hand on the curve of her hip, the other getting lost in her hair. She held on, her fingers exploring the corded muscles along his spine and the short hairs at the back of his head. 

She could feel his hands drifting under her jacket, so she stepped back to pull it off and let it drop where it would. She removed her weapon and set it carefully on the table. He took off his coat and jacket while she did this, and now he stood fumbling in haste with the buttons of his shirt. She smirked at the sight of a grown man, this capable mage and fighter, struggling with something so small as a button. He narrowed his eyes at her. 

“You going to help, or just stand there and be part of the problem?”

She tried to help. She pulled the tails of his shirt from his pants but couldn’t resist running her hands under the hem, skimming the tight muscles beneath his waistband. He hissed and tensed under her touch. 

“Part of the problem, I see,” he growled, his eyes as smoky as ever. 

She rolled her eyes but finally focused on the task at hand, making quick work of his buttons. 

“You just need the right touch,” she said, smirking again and helping him pull his undershirt over his head.

He snorted and tossed the shirt aside. Losing no more time, he caught her around the waist and pressed another kiss to her lips before backing her against the door and rocking his hips against her. She could feel his excitement, and it thrilled her, so she squirmed against him. He paused to look in her eyes, and she smiled at him again. 

With that encouragement, he trailed his mouth along her jaw and down the line of her throat, sucking at the spot where her neck met her shoulder and making her breath hitch in her lungs. Her fingers flew to the buttons of her own shirt. It couldn’t be off fast enough. 

Cool metal at her back, hot tongue across her skin, she danced her fingers along his broad shoulders and purred as he shifted his attention lower. His stubble scraped deliciously as he kissed through her bra. Stars pricked her vision when he caught her nipple between his teeth, rubbing back and forth through the sheer fabric, now wet from his mouth. 

She wanted him so badly now. She gripped his hair and dragged his face up. His eyes met hers, heavy and clouded with lust. 

“Not here,” she said, sliding out from between him and the door. She took his hand and led him to her bedroom. She paused near the foot of the bed and released his hand, only to feel it skate across her hip and wrap around her waist as he pulled her snug from behind. She gasped as he kissed her neck and shoulder, as his free hand pushed the strap from her shoulder and cupped her breast in his palm. He ground himself against her ass, and it made her desperate with need.

She reached back to remove her bra altogether. His hands moved lower in the meantime, unbuttoning her pants and pushing them down her hips along with her underwear. She kicked them off, leaving herself naked in his arms. An appreciative sound rumbled through his chest. It thrummed against her back as he brought his hand still lower to run his fingers through the slick between her thighs, pressing the very tips inside her in a way that was driving her to distraction. 

“Fuck, you’re wet,” he breathed into her ear, and that was about all the teasing she could take. 

She spun in his arms and kissed him hard, catching his lower lip between her teeth, making him groan again. She dragged her hands down from his shoulders, down the body she had admired this morning, now offered freely to her, down to the waist of his pants. She had everything off in mere seconds, her impatience getting the better of her now. 

Almost before he’d stepped out of his clothes, she pulled him down with her to the mattress, where she smiled wickedly and kissed him again, planting her lips along his chin, his jaw, his ear. She wrapped her fingers around the hard--so hard--length of him and relished the breaths and jumbled curses that hissed through his teeth as she pumped her hand along his cock. Then, before he could even begin to recover, she rolled and positioned herself over him. 

She watched his face as she sank down onto him--slowly, giving herself time to adjust to his size. His eyes locked on hers, utter amazement and awe in his gaze. A low groan fell from his lips, but nothing else, as if he was holding his breath. He put his hands on her hips loosely, his body tense beneath her, resisting the urge to drive himself into her, letting her set the pace instead. 

When she had finally taken all of him, she started moving, rocking her hips against him. He propped himself up on one arm and ran his free hand along her body, reaching up to knead her breasts, gripping her ass and hips, urging her on, faster and harder. 

Faster. Harder.

She could feel herself getting close, and as if he could read it on her face, he brought his hand between them, pressing his fingers to that spot where their bodies joined. She jerked at the sensation, which made him smirk with satisfaction. 

Closer. Closer.

“Trevelyan,” she gasped as he teased her again with his fingers. Then he stopped suddenly, and it disappointed her. 

“Owain,” he said. 

“What?” she panted, confused and lost in a haze of lust.

“Owain,” he repeated, his eyes searching hers. “That’s my name.”

_Oh._ He touched her again, and the world went fuzzy around her. “Owain!” she said, this time, which earned her another stroke of his fingers. And another. And each time, she repeated his name. 

She was so, so close now. One more time he touched her, but he said her name instead, drawing out the syllables as he pulled her close and dragged his mouth up her body, between her breasts, over her collarbone, and into the curve of her neck. She never expected her name to sound like _that_ from his lips, and it pushed her over the edge. Her body stiffened against him, and she dug her nails into his shoulders as the feeling crashed over her.

He held her tight, his cock twitching inside her as she rode out the aftershocks. As her muscles went slack, he took over, thrusting up from the mattress and pressing her hips down to meet him. It didn’t take long before he, too, was on the brink. 

“Cassandra,” he whispered, his question already written in his eyes. “Can I...?” 

She nodded quickly, and he closed his eyes, hips jerking to push deep within her. He grunted her name again as he found his release, shuddering and shaking with its intensity. 

He fell back against the sheets when it was over, pulling her down with him. She rested her cheek against his chest, their bodies still joined below. The only sound was their breathing as they floated back to earth. He stroked his hands up and down her back, damp with sweat. She could feel his heart beating a quick rhythm beneath her ear. 

She turned to look at him, propping her chin against his sternum. He brushed the hair from her forehead with his fingers, then reached up to unpin the braid on top of her head. He ran it slowly between his fingers, staring at it in wonder. 

“You’re so beautiful,” he whispered.

It was so easy to say. Almost trite. Yet it was so rarely said about _her._ Damn him, but it worked. She smiled and kissed his lips softly. 

She rolled off and lay facing him, pulling the covers up around them. She drew her fingers over the lines of his face. She trailed them lightly over the scar on his cheek and the ones on his shoulder and chest. 

“What are these?” she asked, furrowing her brows.

He paused a moment, catching her hand and bringing it to his lips to press a kiss against her knuckles. 

“An accident when I was young,” he replied, his eyes going distant. “My magic came in at a very inopportune time. It burned me before I even knew how to control it. And I was packed off to the academy the very same day.”

She hummed with sympathy. “Is it hard to be a mage? I mean, in a world like ours, where people either fear you or want to use you?”

He considered her question for a moment. “Is it hard to be woman? Or a Seeker? I don’t know anything else. But I don’t think it’s harder than being any other thing people fear or hate. We are what we are.”

She had nothing to say to that. She just curled closer, fitting her body to his and tucking her head against his shoulder. They lay there like that until they both fell asleep. 

\---

She woke an hour later, or maybe it was two. Either way, the sun had set, and the hazy yellow glow of the city filtered through her bedroom blinds. It was just enough to see by, the shadows and shapes of the room all familiar, except one, though she didn’t need light to know he was still there. 

His arm was a heavy weight draped across her middle. She turned to face him, careful not to make any sudden movements. She smiled to herself as she studied his face. In sleep, there was no need for arched brows or cheeky smirks. There was just peace, his eyes shifting in his dreams, lips slightly parted, hair curling gently across his forehead. Had she ever thought him less than beautiful?

She got up and pulled on her underwear, stepping out into the hallway. The floor was cool against the soles of her feet. She went to the bathroom and then into the foyer to find her shirt. As she threw it on, her phone buzzed in her jacket where she had dropped it near the door. She pulled it out and checked the message. It was from Josie, and its contents made her heart drop into her stomach and the air feel thin around her.

_Service for Regalyan D’Marcall. 9 AM tomorrow, Starkhaven Memorial Park. Thought you’d want to know. Hope you’re ok. Call me if you need anything._

She stood there staring at it until the screen turned off of its own accord. Then she walked numbly to the kitchen and drew herself a glass of water from the tap. She stood there drinking it, watching the light slant in sharp blades through the window. It was menacing and lonely now. 

_Gone. He was really, truly gone._

With all the activity surrounding the investigation, she had forgotten to mourn. Even now, she couldn’t quite find the tears. Maybe she’d done it on purpose. Kept herself busy so she didn’t have to face it. Or told herself that doing something—anything—meant she wasn’t helpless. 

She wandered into the living room, to the bookshelf in the corner. She picked up the frame and carried it to the window, bringing it to the light. There he was. That smile, those eyes. 

She remembered that day. They had gone to the shore down in Wycome. It was his idea, not hers. Who goes to the beach in winter? But it was beautiful, as he promised, and they had the place to themselves. They sat on the rocks, watching the gulls ride the breeze and the waves roll endlessly toward shore. The cold air made their kisses that much warmer. 

They’d walked the abandoned boardwalk hand-in-hand and come upon the photo machine, which someone had forgotten to shut down for the season. His enthusiasm was immediate, but it took convincing to get her into the booth. 

They’d taken the train home and made love and talked about the future, which was just another word for possibility. Infinite timelines had spooled out before them, different versions of the lives they could have had. Here was the one where they stayed together forever, here was the one where they drifted apart. 

Life had intervened, of course. The joy crystallized in these four images was not how it always was. She had no illusions about that. Even so, it was hard, now, to think in terms of never. 

Then she remembered that there was, at this moment, another man in her bed, one she barely even knew. Her only facts about him had come from a police file, and those were sparse at best. It was foolhardy and dangerous. Her reckless streak was gone now, deserting her in this moment of grief. 

She hugged her shirt tighter around herself and padded back to the bedroom. She sat on the edge of the bed and covered her face with her hands. The mattress shifted as Trevelyan rolled toward her. He put a hand on the small of her back, running it under the tail of her shirt and around to the jut of her hip. It was warm, like he was. 

She turned and looked at him over her shoulder. He lay on his side, sheet pulled to his waist. He pillowed his head on his arm and curved his body in a shallow arc with her at the center. 

In the short time she had known him, his grey eyes had variously been hard and flinty, stormy and smoky. But here, now, they were open and clear, as if all pretense had been stripped away, and what was left was simply him. It was laid bare for her, without words, vulnerable in a way that was both thrilling and terrifying. 

There was comfort in his arms--of that she was sure--along with the faintest glimpse of something more. She imagined it there, shimmering in the air between them. She could trace her fingers along its edges. But to reach out and grasp it? To make it real? That would require her to give, to open herself to him. She’d have to break down her walls, and right now, they were the only thing holding her together. 

It was too much. Love, loss, and the watercolor wash of memory. It was all so complicated, a tangled, messy knot in her center. She could choose this thread and pull it. It might be the key to everything. Or it might just make things worse. 

She needed space. She needed time. She needed to be alone. 

“This was a mistake,” she said, turning her face away. “You need to leave.”

His hand stilled against her hip. She could feel him tense beside her. 

“Cass—”

“It’s Seeker Pentaghast,” she snapped. Her words echoed in the silence. 

He pulled his hand away and fell back against the bed, stunned. Then she felt the mattress shudder as he rolled to his feet, heard the rustle of fabric as he collected his things and dressed. 

He didn’t say anything else, and neither did she. She didn’t look at him. Couldn’t. 

The door clicked shut behind him, and she gasped, like she had forgotten to breathe. 

She swung her legs up into the bed and pulled the covers to her shoulders. He’d left his warmth there, among the sheets. She curled up in it, alone. If not to sleep, then to wait until morning.


	4. Chapter 4

Owain finished buttoning his shirt in the back of the cab. It had started to rain. Fine drops beaded on the windows and smeared the passing lights like blotches of paint across a black canvas. Red, green, white. 

He was a fool. A Maker-damned fool. How did he get this so wrong? 

That first kiss in the elevator was impulse, sure. The product of that afternoon’s adrenaline rush and his own growing attraction to the Seeker. But to his surprise, she had kissed him back, had pulled him down for a second, a third. 

If all she wanted was physical, that would’ve been one thing. He could do that, had done that. But somewhere between the front door and her bed, he'd looked in her eyes and seen something more. It forced something open in him. Knocked a hole in his barriers. And he thought she felt the same. So he took the risk and offered himself, more freely than was wise, but instead of reciprocating, she had rejected him in no uncertain terms. 

Maybe he'd imagined it. Maybe the trust was an illusion. In truth, he didn’t know her, and she didn’t know him. They were strangers all along. 

The car pulled up to a handsome brownstone in a quiet residential neighborhood in central Ostwick. He shoved a handful of bills at the driver and stepped out onto the curb. Rain drizzled down onto his bare head, but he couldn’t have cared less. 

He buzzed himself in and dragged himself up to his fourth floor apartment. He shouldered open the door that tended to stick on humid days and tossed his keys on the radiator cover just inside. 

The light was on in the kitchen. He hung up his coat and walked in to find Althea seated at the small table. One of his few friends from the academy and a long-ago ex fresh off her latest disaster of a relationship, she’d been staying at his place for the past few weeks before moving into her own.

Althea sat at the table with a glass of whiskey and a plate of eggs, reading something on her phone. She looked up at him and frowned. 

“Where the fuck have you been? I was about to call the police and report you as missing. Don’t you answer texts anymore?”

“I was busy,” he said, making his way to the refrigerator. He opened it and considered its contents. Or lack thereof.

“Where did all my food go?”

“You mean your, like, four eggs and old cheese? It made a killer omelet, if I do say so myself.”

He closed the fridge and went over to the table, sitting down in the other chair. He took the fork from Althea’s hand and pulled the plate in front of him, finishing the rest of the eggs in four bites. It was a pretty good omelet, actually. 

Althea got up to retrieve another glass, set it in front of him, and poured him a whiskey. Then she picked up her own drink, sniffed it, and sighed before taking a sip. 

“I did run out for the essentials,” she said, nodding at the nearly full bottle. “We were running dangerously low.”

She looked him over, probably noticing the sorry state of his clothes, the bloodstains, his mussed hair. 

“Seriously, though,” she said. “Where have you been? You look like shit. What is this on your face?” 

She reached a hand toward his jaw. He jerked backwards, not wanting to feel her touch just then. He ran his own hand along his chin and could feel the coarse hair that had accumulated over the last two days. He sighed and picked up his glass, taking a few fortifying sips before speaking. 

“I was kidnapped by a Seeker,” he said. 

“What?”

“I was at the Conclave. For work.”

Althea sat back in her chair, her eyes wide. “Shit.”

“Yeah.”

“I thought maybe you got caught up in some of the protests and shit that’s been going on, but I didn’t think you were actually _there_.”

“I mean, I didn’t die, clearly,” he said, frowning. “What protests?”

“Haven’t you seen the news? A squad of Templars showed up at a vigil downtown tonight, and some mages started shouting at them. It all went downhill from there. People got hurt. It was bad.”

He furrowed his brows, trying to absorb this new information. He really had been rather busy that afternoon.

“Wait,” said Althea, her mind catching up to his words. “What does the Conclave have to do with the Seekers?”

“ _A_ Seeker,” he clarified. “I was a witness. She wouldn’t let me leave, so she took me home with her.”

“ _She?_ Was this a _Lady_ Seeker you’ve been with for the past two days?” She gasped, as if understanding had dawned on her. “Does this explain why you look like you just rolled out of bed?”

He glared at her. “Don’t,” he warned.

She didn’t press further, but the knowing smile she flashed him over her glass was infuriating all the same. 

He rolled his eyes. “When did you say your lease starts?”

“The fifth,” she answered. Then she clutched mockingly at her heart. “Are you trying to get rid of me, Owain Trevelyan?”

“Been trying for ten years,” he smirked, lifting his drink to his lips. “It never seems to stick.” She kicked his shin under the table. 

He bid Althea goodnight and refilled his glass before going to his bedroom and shutting the door against the world. Solitude at last. 

He took off his jacket and made a face at the sad condition of the sleeves. He'd already given up on the shirt. He finished undressing and got into bed, propping his head against the pillows and sipping at his nightcap. 

He re-lived it in his memory. He could drink that whole bottle and never forget. The way her hazel eyes glowed at him. The way she smiled outside her door. The way she fell apart for him beneath his fingers and fell asleep in his arms. He could still hear her saying his name. Could still smell her on his skin. 

_Fuck._

It didn’t feel like a mistake. It felt like the answer to a question he’d been asking himself for a very long time. 

\---

It rained during the funeral. Cassandra stood on the soaked grass, apart from the mass of family and friends that crowded under the too-small canopy. The thud of raindrops on her umbrella drowned out the prayer of the diminutive Chantry mother, so she offered up her own. 

She tried to reconcile her memory of the man she had loved with the tiny box of ashes they were about to put in the ground. She thought of his laugh, his smile, his optimism about even such a place as March City, and she decided that this wasn’t him. No, that man was gone. 

She stayed long enough to watch them shovel earth into the hole. And then she left, before anyone tried to talk to her. 

She had driven because of the weather. She found her car in the lot and got in, tossing the sodden umbrella on the passenger side floor. She had started the engine and taken off the parking brake before she realized she didn’t know where she was going. There was no point in going home again and nothing for her at the office. She thought about the documents from the apartment in Wycome, still sitting in her jacket pocket. She wanted desperately to talk through them with someone, to help make sense of the puzzle pieces. 

Trevelyan would have been the obvious choice. He’d been there, after all. She had spent all night thinking about him, when she wasn’t thinking about Galyan. He’d stirred a storm of emotions in her heart, and she hadn’t even begun to make sense of it all. She did not regret what they’d done, nor asking him to leave, though admittedly she could have done it more gently. The memory of her words mortified her, but she told herself he would get over it, that it would come to mean nothing. He would accept the sex for what it was and move on, like any man. She did not want to see him right now. Cullen would have to do. 

She switched on the radio as she pulled out of the driveway and caught a newscast in progress. 

_...have identified a key suspect in the Conclave explosion, a Grey Warden. The alleged perpetrator was found deceased in his home in the Wycome district, the victim of what authorities are describing as foul play involving fire magic. Explosives and bomb-making materials were found in the home, and surveillance footage links the Warden to the Conclave, where he was identified as fleeing the scene along with an unknown accomplice. Templars are now investigating the suspect’s death and urge anyone with information about unregistered magic to contact their local Templar precinct..._

She missed the light turning green, which earned her a blaring horn from the car behind her. She scowled in the rearview mirror and stepped on the gas, her mind racing faster than her car. 

There was no way around it. She would have to swallow her pride. She breathed out a long sigh and turned onto the ramp for the freeway, heading east toward Ostwick. 

She checked the address twice before getting out of the car and again before rapping her knuckles on the door. A woman answered and stood on the threshold. She was dressed in a simple t-shirt and sweatpants, and her brown hair was bound in a messy braid over her shoulder, but Cassandra could tell she was the kind of woman who was attractive to men and knew it. She arched a pretty brow. 

“Yes?”

Cassandra had expected Trevelyan. She had steeled herself for that, and this development threw her plan into shambles. She frowned and cast her eyes again to the number on the door as she tried to pluck words from the chaos in her brain. Maybe his file had been wrong. 

“I’m sorry,” she began. “I must have the wrong apartment.”

The woman furrowed her brows for a moment and then smiled. “Oh!” she said, stepping aside to let Cassandra through the door. “You must be looking for Owain. He’s here. Come in!”

Her mind whirred as she followed the woman into a small, neat living room. Trevelyan had never mentioned a girlfriend, or—Maker forbid—a wife. He wore no rings. Surely he was not the kind of man who would dally with her if he was attached somewhere else, was he? Then she remembered that she knew virtually nothing about him as it was. Why should anything be a surprise? It made her slightly miserable all the same. 

“He just got out of the shower. Probably changing. Althea Bennett, by the way. Owain’s roommate.” She held out a hand and curved her lips in a friendly smile full of perfect white teeth. 

_Roommate? What man in his thirties has a roommate? A woman. Who looks like this._

Cassandra shook her hand warily. “Cassandra Pentaghast.”

“Feel free to sit down,” Althea said, leaning against an armchair. “Can I get you anything? Water? Coffee?”

“No, thank you.” Cassandra shook her head and perched on the edge of a leather sofa. She tried to gather her thoughts, figure out what to say when he came in. But Althea seemed determined to talk to her. 

“So you know Owain from work?” she asked.

“Yes… I am a Seeker of Truth.”

“Isn’t it terrible what happened at the Conclave? And all this unrest with the mages and the Templars. It’s made things even worse. Thank the Maker they found the guy who did it.”

Unsure how to answer that, Cassandra pressed her lips together and shifted in her seat. A door opened down the hall, and Trevelyan walked into the room. As he entered, he shrugged on a hooded sweatshirt over a casual button-down and jeans. She realized she had only ever seen him in a suit. Or naked. She stood quickly. Perhaps too quickly. 

His eyes found hers almost immediately, and he looked momentarily stricken. Something flickered in their depths, and he blinked away, combing his fingers through his damp hair. 

“Cassandra’s here,” Althea said brightly, smirking at Trevelyan. He narrowed his eyes at her before turning to Cassandra again. 

“So she is,” he said flatly, his eyes cold and hard now. He squared his shoulders and crossed his arms over his chest. “What can I do for you, Seeker Pentaghast?”

There was something vaguely hostile about the way he said her name, over-pronouncing the consonants and making them sound harsh. He stared at her, and she didn’t know how to start. None of this was going to plan. She opened her mouth to speak and then paused, conflicted about how much to say in front of Althea. 

For her part, Althea bounced her eyes between the two of them and then patted Trevelyan on the shoulder. 

“Well. I’m sure you want to talk about work, so I’ll get out of your way.” She smiled again at Cassandra. “It was nice to meet you.”

And then it was just the two of them. The air felt charged between them, and there was a slight ache in her chest. Maybe it was best to ignore it, to press through and pretend it wasn’t there. She took a deep breath and began. 

“Have you heard the news this morning?”

He looked at her for a second and then slouched into an armchair, sighing and dragging his hand down his face. Perhaps talking about work was a relief for both of them. A welcome distraction, at least. 

“Hard not to,” he said. “It’s everywhere, and it’s bullshit.”

“They must have come in and staged it after we left. What I do not understand is why anyone would go to so much trouble.”

“He’s an easy target,” Trevelyan observed. “An elf, a Fereldan. Someone paid him a lot of money to do what he did, and they didn’t want the strings to lead back to them.”

“I wonder if he knew he was going to his death,” she said quietly.

Trevelyan said nothing to that. He leaned his head back against the top of the chair, turning to look out the window. 

“They may be looking for you,” she continued, sitting down on the couch again. “That is probably you on the footage from the hotel, and there will be evidence of a struggle at the apartment. Your magic.”

He turned his head to consider the ceiling. “Well, I _was_ there,” he pointed out. “And I _did_ kill him. Nothing I can do about that. It just doesn’t mean what they say it does.”

He sighed deeply and pulled himself up, leaning forward and letting his hands hang between his knees. 

“Why drag another dog into this fight?” he went on, looking her in the eyes now. “Things are bad enough with the mages and Templars, why involve the Wardens, too?”

“According to Blackwall, they have plenty of their own problems already.” She shook her head. “Someone is getting something out of this. We just need to find out what.”

“So what do we do now?”

Cassandra pulled her phone from her pocket and tapped it on her knee thoughtfully. Then she unlocked it and composed a message to Josephine. 

“We get ahead of it,” she said, her thumbs typing rapidly on the screen. “And then we find out who is behind all this.”

\---

They didn’t speak on the way downtown. Whatever ease once existed between them was gone, replaced by a loaded silence that she didn’t have words to breach, once they had said what needed to be said about the investigation. He had closed himself off from her, defenses up again. She couldn’t really blame him. Her armor was just as thick. 

Josie met them when they got off the elevator on the third floor of City Hall, still dressed in black from the funeral. She put a hand on Cassandra’s arm as they walked toward the offices in the east wing. Trevelyan followed a few steps behind. 

“You know this is not what I meant when I said call me if you need anything,” she said. “Are you sure you’re ok?”

“I’m fine,” Cassandra replied, doing her best to ignore Josie’s skeptical frown. “Or I will be. Thank you for setting this up.”

“Leliana will do anything for me.”

“That is why I called you.”

“Is this about the Conclave? Can you believe it was a Grey Warden?”

“Yes, and I am not sure that’s the full story.” 

Josie gave her a hard look. “Well, I hope you’re right,” she sighed. “The City Council is already discussing how to punish the Wardens for this. Justinia has been gone two days, and we’re already squabbling amongst ourselves.”

They stopped in front of a heavy wooden door. Josie wrapped her in a hug, which Cassandra stiffly returned. “Be careful,” she said. Then she smiled at Trevelyan and left. Her heels clacked on the smooth floor as she made her way back down the hall. 

Cassandra knocked twice on the door before pressing her hand on the lever and letting herself in. Trevelyan followed and closed the door behind them. 

March City’s District Attorney Leliana Nightingale stood with her hands clasped behind her back, staring through the large square window at the rain. She was dressed in a grey suit, a purple silk scarf arranged elegantly around her neck. Her bright red hair was cut in a severe bob. 

“Cassandra,” she said with a small smile, moving to sit at her desk. She gestured for them to take the two chairs opposite.

“And who is this?” she said, turning toward Trevelyan. 

“He’s—”

“Owain Trevelyan, CIB,” he said, before she could finish. He pulled an ID from under his leather jacket and slid it across the polished wood. 

Cassandra was speechless. And furious. Her mouth dropped open, and she blinked several times in disbelief. He turned to look at her. His mouth remained a flat line, but the tiny wrinkle at the corner of his eye was to her as obnoxious as a full-blown smirk. She grit her teeth and glared at him. _Lying. Little. Shit._

“Enchanter-Investigator,” Leliana read, her eyes scanning his credentials. Satisfied, she looked up and returned the badge. “Well, isn’t this an interesting partnership,” she said, casting her eyes between the two of them, clearly catching a hint of the tension but choosing to let it go. “What can I do for the two of you?”

Cassandra cleared her throat and shelved her anger, for now. “The Conclave,” she began. “The Templars have identified a Grey Warden as the perpetrator.”

“Yes, and unfortunately he was killed before we could question him. And now they search for his killer.”

“The Templars have not given you the full truth. We have reason to believe there is something deeper here. They are setting up this story to suit someone else’s convenience.”

Leliana furrowed her brows. “And what are these reasons, exactly, Seeker?”

“Tabris was not killed at his apartment. And there were no explosives found there. It was all arranged after the fact. It is quite possible he was not a Warden at all.”

“How do you know this?”

“I’m the one who killed him,” Trevelyan interjected. 

Leliana turned to him and raised her brows. She waited for him to continue. 

“He was at the hotel, that much is true,” he explained. “I was there and followed him out, chased him until I lost him. After the explosion, I was taken to the Haven police station. He showed up there and pulled a gun on me. And a knife. I had no choice but to defend myself.”

“Hence the magic-induced burns.”

“Correct,” he nodded. “But it didn’t happen in Wycome.”

“They found evidence of a struggle. The same magic signatures at the scene.”

“We went to search the apartment and were accosted by a pair of Templars,” Cassandra said. “I identified myself as a Seeker, and they did not back down. There was an altercation, we subdued them, and left. The apartment itself was clean when we arrived.”

“You two have certainly been busy.” Leliana leaned back in her chair and tented her fingers in front of her. “Alright. If what you say is true, and the Templars are planting evidence, who’s truly responsible here? How do you explain what happened?”

“That… is less clear at the moment,” Cassandra admitted. “We know that Tabris was paid for his participation in the Conclave. But he was working with someone else. He could not have orchestrated this on his own, and there is no clear motive.”

“Then what do you want me to do about it?”

She was incredulous. Did this not call for urgent action? 

“We are talking about corruption at the highest levels, Leliana. The Templars are covering up the murder of the Mayor!”

“I need something stronger than this, Cassandra,” Leliana replied, ever level-headed and cool. “I agree that something is amiss here, but my hands are tied until the investigation is finished. I need names, evidence, a clear case. Bring me something I can use.”

She stood and paced around her chair, turning to look out the window again. 

“I have plenty to deal with as it is,” she continued, speaking over her shoulder. “The mage-Templar conflicts grow worse by the day. Now people are demanding the exile of all Wardens from March City. Not to mention the special election that must be held in sixty days.”

Cassandra sighed and set her jaw. Leliana was right. This was premature. They needed more information before they could act. Still, it was useful to know that the DA was on their side and for her to know there was more to this story than what the Templars were feeding her. 

“Very well,” she said. “We will get you what you need.”

They got up and left, taking the elevator to the ground floor. When it opened, Trevelyan walked quickly to the exit, shoving the door open and letting it swing back behind him. Remembering her anger, she huffed and pushed the door out of her way, using so much force that it banged against the wall outside. He was still walking fast. She had to jog a few steps to keep up, but she was determined that he would not get away. 

“You’re Circle,” she growled when she got within a few paces.

“Yes,” he replied without slowing down. 

“You said you were an apostate.”

“ _You_ said I was an apostate.”

“And you didn’t think it necessary to enlighten me? Even after we--”

He stopped suddenly, turning to face her. She nearly crashed into him. 

“After we what? _Fucked?_ ” He spat the word like cold poison. “I thought you said that was a mistake. You made that pretty clear.”

She was prepared for the anger in his eyes, but not the hurt. It took her aback. Words deserted her, and her silence only seemed to disappoint him more. He shook his head and turned away, continuing his brisk walk across the parking lot and raising his hood against the rain. 

She couldn’t leave it like that. 

“Trevelyan, wait. Trevelyan! Owain!”

He stopped, when she used his given name. He didn’t turn around, but just stopped and stood there in the rain. She ran to meet him. Puddle water splashed over her boots, but she didn’t care. 

“Owain,” she began, breathless. She stepped around to look him in the eyes. The anger was gone now, leaving just the pain. “I’m sorry. You weren’t the mistake.”

He said nothing, but he was listening. She hugged her arms against her chest. 

“It’s just that… I have only been with one other man in my life. His name was Regalyan.”

“The man from the photo. In your apartment.”

“Yes,” she said, wondering when he could have noticed that. “He was at the Conclave. They buried him this morning.”

Her voice shook, so she paused to master it. 

“What we had ended a long time ago, but we were still friends, and yesterday, I… I just...” She trailed off, forgetting what else she wanted to say. She shook her head and repeated herself. “You weren’t the mistake.”

She started to cry then, the tears flowing freely like they hadn’t last night or even this morning. _Maker, this was frustrating._ She turned away and wiped at her eyes in vain. 

They stood there for a moment, each wrapped in their own thoughts. And then silently he put a hand on her arm and pulled her close, and she buried her face in his shoulder, breathing in the scent of his shirt, his detergent, and him, surrounding herself in the warmth that seemed to radiate from him always. 

“Sorry about your friend,” he whispered, somewhere near her ear. 

\---

They sat at the diner counter, on the very end, where they wouldn’t be bothered during the mid-afternoon lull. Owain smiled at the waitress who came to drop off a slice of apple pie and top up the cup of coffee he’d been nursing for the past hour. Seeker Pentaghast sat beside him and stirred the bowl of soup she’d been staring at for about just as long. 

Lunch had been a quiet affair after their conversation in the parking lot. She had apologized for throwing him out last night, and he had comforted her, but where that left them now he wasn’t sure. And it wasn’t the time to ask. Her eyes were still puffy and her makeup smudged, though the tears were done with and the redness gone. Her hair lay scattered across her forehead, matted from the rain. He had the strongest urge to reach up and smooth it back with his fingertips, but he didn’t. It was not something that belonged to him. So he tapped his fingers on the speckled countertop instead. 

He picked up his fork and stabbed it into the pastry on his plate. It was better than expected. Sweet, but not overly so. 

He turned and pushed the plate toward Cassandra. She looked up and arched a brow at him. He nodded and flicked his eyes between the plate and her. When she didn’t move, he reached over and scooped up another bite, locking his eyes to hers as he put it in his mouth. When he was done, he wagged his eyebrows at her and put the fork back in his mouth, running his tongue along the tines and cleaning it of crumbs and remnants of whipped cream. He licked it like he’d… Well, he licked it. 

She watched him raptly for a second, then she snorted and rolled her eyes. He grinned. She pushed her soup away and picked up her fork to try the pie. 

“I suppose this isn’t terrible,” she shrugged. And then, with a smirk and a quick glance at him, she pulled the plate closer and proceeded to eat the rest of it. He chuckled into his coffee. 

The door opened and rattled closed. Detective Rutherford entered, along with a gust of damp air. His eyes scanned the diner and its handful of occupants. Owain raised his hand in a brief wave. 

Rutherford sat on the stool next to him. The plastic upholstery sighed quietly beneath his weight. The waitress appeared and poured him a cup of coffee. He screwed his eyes shut, rubbing the back of his neck with his hand. Then he blinked them open and poured cream into his mug, stirring quickly before taking a sip. 

“Still having headaches?” asked Seeker Pentaghast. 

“They come and go,” he replied. “My bigger pain right now is what’s happening with this Warden.”

“We are not even sure he’s a Warden,” she pointed out. 

“Does it matter?” he said, arching a brow. “Plenty of blame going around currently, with or without the truth.” He sighed and pinched the bridge of his nose. “I’m sorry I sent you to Wycome. I didn’t know the Templars would get there so soon.”

“Luckily we’re hard to kill,” Owain quipped from behind his own cup. 

The detective was not amused. “I looked into Denam and Green, the Templars you met at the apartment. They’re from Kirkwall. Their captain is an old acquaintance of mine.”

“Samson?” the Seeker asked. “Your old partner?”

“Yes,” he sighed again. “Green is a new recruit, but Denam I remember from my time there. He was always a little cruel. Too eager to enforce the rules on mages. He must have been promoted after I left.”

Owain remembered the Templar’s hands around the Seeker’s throat, and he seethed silently to himself. 

“I don’t have many friends left among the Order, but I’ve asked around, and apparently, many in Samson’s unit have started taking a new variant of L. It’s a more potent formulation, red instead of blue. They say it’s even more addictive, but it gives you heightened powers. Greater strength, greater stamina.”

“That explains why they were so much trouble,” Pentaghast observed.

Rutherford nodded. “What’s more, these Templars have taken the color as something of a new identity. They think of themselves as some kind of elite force, even within the Order.”

“So an elite squad of Templars is given responsibility for the Conclave investigation,” Owain said. “A day later, they have a suspect who’s conveniently dead, and clear evidence pointing to his involvement in the explosion. It’s all very neat, isn’t it?” 

“Very.”

“It cannot be coincidence,” the Seeker said. “If we find out who is behind these Red Templars, perhaps we will find out who was behind the Warden. Cullen, is there any chance you could learn more? Trace the source of this new drug?”

“I’ve already thought about that,” he replied. “It can’t be me. It’s too well known that I stopped using when I quit, and it would be suspicious if I suddenly showed an interest. But there are a few men I can trust. I’ll see if one of them might be willing to help.”

She nodded. “Make the contact, and we will handle the rest.”

\---

They were parked at the curb across the street, waiting for Rutherford’s friend Rylen and the Red Templar to emerge from the storefront they had entered a half hour earlier. The sun had set behind the buildings, and it was starting to get dark. Rain still pattered on the roof and rolled steadily down the windshield. 

“So are you really from Ostwick?” asked Seeker Pentaghast. 

Owain turned toward her. She had not taken her focus from the entrance. 

“Yes,” he replied, shifting his weight in the passenger seat. “I grew up there until I got shipped to the academy when I was thirteen. They trained me as a battlemage and enlisted me when I came of age. I served through the Blight, then joined CIB when I got out. Been doing that ever since.” 

“And the rest of it? Was everything else true?”

He looked at her sharply, but she still wasn’t meeting his eyes. Did she really mean _everything?_

“All of it,” he said quietly. She looked at him, finally, and he held her gaze as long as she would let him. So she’d believe him. 

“What about your roommate?” she asked, blinking away.

“Roommate?” 

“Althea.”

“Is that what she told you?” he laughed. “‘Overstayed house guest’ is probably a better term. Or ‘freeloading squatter.’ I kind of like the way that sounds.”

“So, you are not…”

“We were, a long time ago. Friends, now.” He smirked. “Weren’t you the one who said we shouldn’t assume anything more?”

She frowned, avoiding eye contact again. Was that a hint of pink on her cheeks? Hard to tell in this light. He might be enjoying this mild jealousy a little too much.

“Thea’s probably the closest thing I have to real family anymore,” he continued, following her line of sight to the doorway they were watching. “She teaches at the College now and collects broken men. The last one didn’t want to be fixed. They usually don’t. She’s just staying until her new place is ready.”

“What about you?” he asked when she said nothing else. “Does this interrogation go both ways?”

“There’s not much to know,” she sighed, tapping her fingers on the steering wheel. “I was born in Nevarra, in Cumberland. My parents were killed in the uprising when I was young. My brother and I were raised by our uncle.”

“How did you end up in March City?”

She paused a moment, wrapping her fingers around the wheel and watching her knuckles turn white. They were bruised from yesterday’s meeting with the Templars. 

“My brother was murdered when I was 16. By mages. I was angry. All I cared about was revenge. I tried to join the Templars, but they picked me for Seeker training instead. When I finished, they sent me here, and this is where I’ve been ever since.”

He remembered the other photo from her apartment, the smiling girl with her hands on her hips. 

“I’m sorry about your brother. I’m sorry it had to be mages.”

“You don’t need to apologize,” she said, looking at him directly. “It had nothing to do with you. There are evil people everywhere, whether they wield magic or not.”

He couldn’t argue with that. 

“I looked you up,” he continued. “You’re some kind of hero, aren’t you? Saved the life of the previous Mayor?”

“I discovered a plot against her, yes,” she sighed. “But a lot of other people were involved. It was hardly my effort alone.”

He couldn’t help smiling at her humility. 

“You’re pretty impressive, do you know that?” 

“Are you trying to flatter me?” 

“Is it working?” he asked archly. 

She just looked at him for a second and then snorted, shaking her head. She turned away, but there was an unmistakable smile on her lips that made his heart beat quicker in his chest. 

There was movement outside, at last. The door opened, and Rylen slipped out, his hands stuffed in his coat pockets. He made his way down the block behind them, crossing at the intersection and moving out of sight. 

A few seconds later, the Seeker’s phone lit with a text: _Got it._

They waited a few more minutes for Denam to emerge from the building. He turned his head, scanning the street before walking briskly to the end of it. He got into a dark sedan parked at the corner. 

They followed at a safe distance. When they reached the central business district in Starkhaven, Seeker Pentaghast grumbled. Owain looked at her. 

“I know where he’s going,” she said. The car pulled into a garage attached to the building that housed the central office of the March City Seekers of Truth. She parked on a side street and shut off the engine. 

“Wait here,” she said, her hand already on the door. “I’m going inside.”

She was gone before he could say anything. He sat and watched her walk away, momentarily losing himself in the sway of her hips. Then he pulled a lighter from his pocket and flipped it open, snapped it shut. 

\---

“Cassandra! Twice in one week!” 

The young Seeker pushed back from his desk and came around to greet her with a hug. 

“It is always good to see you, Daniel,” she said, smiling at the man she had mentored when he was just a recruit. 

“What brings you to central?” he asked, sitting back in his chair. "Another meeting with Lucius?”

“No, just coming to say hello,” she replied, leaning against the edge of his desk and crossing her legs at the ankles. “Things have been chaotic at City Hall after the Conclave.”

“Oh, shit. I forgot you were supposed to be there. Sorry.”

“Don’t be. I am fine. Have you seen a Templar here? Perhaps five or ten minutes ago?”

“Was he big and ugly? Yeah, he came through a little while ago. Went in to see Lucius. Why?”

She turned and fixed her eyes on the Seeker-Commander’s closed door from across the room. There were only a few reasons that a Red Templar would meet with Lucius, and all of them were sinister in some way. 

“I’ll tell you later…” she said, trailing off as the door opened a moment later. 

Denam stepped out. Before she could turn away, he recognized her, and his face broke into a leering grin. She snarled at him, but it only made him bolder. He ran his eyes over her as he walked slowly toward the exit, pursing his lips to kiss the air before slipping out the door. She grunted in disgust. 

“What was that?” Daniel frowned. “Do you know him?”

“I gave him that bruise on his jaw.”

“Damn.”

Movement from the Seeker-Commander’s office caught her eye, and she turned her head to see. That was a mistake, too. Lucius spotted her and smiled. 

“Cassandra! Just the Seeker I wanted to see.”

His voice was like ice poured down her back, and cold dread crept into her heart.


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for sticking with me and this crazy AU! 
> 
> Enjoy the finale! <3

Cassandra huddled with Cullen and Trevelyan around the speakerphone in the bowels of the Haven police station. Leliana’s voice sounded tinny, ringing off the metal table and the hard cinder block walls. Back in the interrogation room again. 

“You are making a very serious allegation, Seeker.” 

“We wouldn’t be talking if it wasn’t serious,” Trevelyan broke in. 

There was a deadly moment of silence before Leliana replied. “I don’t know how you do things in the Circle, Enchanter Trevelyan, but out here, we get evidence _before_ we decide someone’s guilty.”

“Tell that to the Tranquil mages in Kirkwall,” he shot back. He pushed up from the table and stalked to the corner, where he stood scowling against the wall with his arms across his chest. 

_Not helpful._ Cassandra glared at him and leaned closer to the phone. “It is the only plausible explanation, Leliana. Lucius must be involved. How else could they have circumvented security and arranged everything so easily? No one else would have the Templars at their disposal like this.”

“It’s not just that,” Cullen added. “I had the lab analyze the sample of red L we got from Denam. Dagna says it’s different from any lyrium she’s seen before. What’s more, it also matches a substance we found at the scene of the Conclave. She’s still working out the details, but we believe it was part of the device that caused the explosion.” 

“And as I told you both already,” Leliana replied, her tone full of steel, “that is not enough. What you have is circumstantial at best. Against someone at the Seeker-Commander’s level, my case must be ironclad.”

Cassandra glanced at Cullen across the table and blew out a long sigh. He pressed his fingers to his forehead and squeezed his eyes shut. They needed more evidence, and their options for getting it were growing thinner by the hour. 

Leliana went on into the silence. “Look. I want to help you. I want revenge for the Conclave as much as you do. But if you’re wrong, this jeopardizes everything I have worked for. That Justinia worked for. I will prepare to move against Lucius, but you _must_ get me evidence I can use. I don’t want to have this conversation again.” 

Cassandra thanked her and hung up the phone. She curled her fingers into fists and beat them on the tabletop as she weighed their next steps. 

She recalled her conversation with Lucius earlier that evening. He’d said nothing about the investigation at first. He inquired harmlessly after her well-being and expressed his condolences after the Conclave. But then, with no other prompting, he brought up the subject of the Red Templars, or as he put it, rumors of a rogue splinter group within the Templar ranks. He mentioned a suspected base of operations in a warehouse in Kirkwall, dropping the information like it was nothing. He never said he knew what she was working on, but the glint in his eye told her that he did. This was no slip of the tongue. It was an invitation. 

They needed to link Lucius to the Conclave, and she could think of no other way to do it. This was their most promising lead. Their only lead. 

“That’s it then,” she declared. “I will go to Kirkwall. I will investigate this Templar base he wants me to look into. I will confront him.”

“No,” Cullen insisted, slicing his hand through the air. “Out of the question. It’s an obvious trap, Cassandra.”

“What choice do I have?” she argued. “The longer we wait, the more time they have to cover their tracks.”

“It’s far too dangerous.” The finality in his tone grated on her nerves. 

“Worse than sitting here on our hands?” she huffed. “I see no point in running around in circles, like a dog chasing its tail. Cullen, he knows that I know. If he wanted to kill me, he could have done so already. There is something he wants me to see.” 

“I’ll go with you,” offered Trevelyan from his corner. She turned to look at him. 

“I do not need your protection,” she said through clenched teeth. 

His brows arched but his gaze was steady. “No, you don’t,” he agreed.

Cullen looked between the two of them. “Oh, for-- Maker’s breath,” he grumbled, throwing his hands in the air. “This is unbelievable!” 

She just stared at him, waiting. They said patience was a virtue, but it wasn’t often one of hers. 

He relented. “Fine,” he sighed. He leaned forward and pointed at her, punctuating his words by stabbing his finger at nothing. “But you’re wearing a wire. And I’ll be listening every step of the way. If anything goes south, I’m calling in the cavalry.”

She nodded to his conditions. A small smile tugged at the corner of her mouth.

\---

The sky had cleared by the time they arrived in Kirkwall’s warehouse district. Moonlight silvered the rooftops and pavement, still wet from the day’s rain. 

The tires crunched on gravel as they pulled off the road. Seeker Pentaghast cut the headlights and parked the car in the shadow of a long concrete building. She sighed deeply and turned to him. Her mouth was set in a grim line. Owain drew his own into a dark smile that didn’t reach his eyes. The danger of their endeavor was starting to feel very real. He’d been serious about coming with her, and he still was, but the idea of the two of them walking knowingly into a Templar trap formed the nucleus of a ball of dread that was rapidly expanding in the pit of his stomach. 

Seeker Pentaghast reached over him to the glove box, pulling out a pair of flashlights and handing him one. Next, she took out her spare handgun and offered it to him. He shook his head—he still didn’t want or need it—but she didn’t press this time. Instead, she tucked it into her belt at the small of her back. 

She put in her earpiece and motioned for him to do the same. Then she reached into her shirt and switched on the transponder. He could hear a faint crackle through the speaker. 

“Cullen, do you read me?”

“Copy.”

“We’re in position.”

“Good,” said the voice in their ears. “I’ve got a team on standby. Remember, get what you need and get out of there. If there’s trouble, call us in. No need for heroics.”

“Wait for my signal,” she reminded him. “Do not intervene too early. If we cannot tie this to Lucius, it will all be for nothing.”

Rutherford’s heavy sigh was audible over the radio. “Just be careful, Cass.”

They glanced at each other once more before getting out of the car. The air was damp with a hint of salt, thanks to their proximity to the docks. The Waking Sea was an expanse of dark sky to the south. Cars roared on the freeway somewhere above. They kept to the shadows, weaving between buildings and metal shipping containers. They met no one. 

They made their way toward the warehouse Lucius had described and found their path blocked by a chain link fence topped by curls of razor wire. They followed the fence only to see that it ended in a vehicle entrance guarded by a sentry in a lit booth. Seeker Pentaghast huffed softly, and they turned to go in the other direction. There had to be another way in. 

Near the back of the building, they found a small gate secured by loops of chain and a padlock. The Seeker pulled on it and frowned as she met the limit of the chain. 

Owain signaled her to step back. A cold mist cloaked his hand as he cast an ice spell. He waited a moment and then grabbed the lock, yanking it downward with a sudden motion. It popped open in his hand, the metal frozen and brittle from his magic. He pulled the chain and let it slither to the ground before swinging open the gate. He smirked as he held it for the Seeker, who rolled her eyes as she brushed past. 

There was a small loading dock at the rear of the warehouse. Seeker Pentaghast climbed the concrete ledge and checked the overhead door but could find no way to open it. Probably mechanized, operated from the inside. Owain approached the conventional door beside it. Locked, of course. He focused his magic again and cast another freezing spell at the bolt and hinges, sending a cloud of white frost into the damp night air. A moment later, he summoned a stonefist and hurled it at the center of the door. It fell crashing from its frame with a heavy crack and the echoing creak of metal. 

Effective, but louder than intended. He winced at the noise. Pentaghast furrowed her brows at him but moved swiftly toward the door. 

It was full dark inside. The Seeker drew her weapon. They switched on their flashlights and picked their way over the threshold. 

Instead of one cavernous space, the interior was partitioned into a few smaller rooms. This section at the rear was probably the largest. Owain estimated more than half the length of the building before the beam of his light hit a bisecting wall. A door on the left led further forward. On the right, a smaller room hugged the structure’s outer wall. 

While Owain concerned himself with the perimeter, Seeker Pentaghast ran her light around their immediate area. The room they were in was far from empty. They were surrounded by rows of rough wooden crates, stacked two or three high. She paused at the nearest one and examined it closely. It was nailed shut and marked with a stamped symbol he recognized as the griffon of the Grey Wardens. 

She looked up sharply and caught his eye at this discovery. Then she searched the area briefly and returned with a pry bar. She holstered her gun and handed her light to him. He held it for her while she wedged the bar in a gap and threw her weight against it. Nails squeaked as she levered the wood free and pushed the boards aside, revealing another box within, this one of thick styrofoam. 

As soon as the crate was open, an odd ringing filled his ears. It unsettled him. It seemed to hum among his very thoughts. 

“Do you hear that?” he asked, frowning at the Seeker. 

She paused and looked at him, shaking her head slightly. She lifted away the foam lid, and the song grew exponentially stronger. He turned away for a moment, blinking and gathering himself. And then he remembered what it reminded him of--the Templars. 

Pentaghast made an impatient sound and motioned for him to reposition the light. He obliged, swallowing his nausea and doing his best to force the discomfort from his mind. 

It was red lyrium. A great glowing spike of it pulsed at them from the bottom of the box. 

Their eyes met over the top of the crate, and he saw his own worry reflected on her face. She replaced the insulating foam and wood and took her flashlight from his hands. She directed the beam along the rows of identical crates, each marked with the Warden seal. 

“Cullen, we’ve found their store of lyrium. There are at least twenty, thirty boxes of it here. Enough to supply an army of Red Templars.”

“Any idea where they’re getting it from?” Rutherford asked in their ears.

Pentaghast had taken out her phone to snap photos of the crate and its contents. The humming crescendoed again. “The Wardens,” she replied.

“Shit,” breathed the voice on the line.

“There is more,” she said, moving toward the far end of the room. “We are not done here yet.”

She stopped in front of the small room, shining her light through the glass in the door. She tested the handle, but it wouldn’t give. Owain made to step forward but she held up her hand to stop him. With a quick jab, she smashed the butt of her weapon through the window, reaching down to twist the lock on the other side. She threw him a quick smirk as she tried the handle again, successful this time. He snorted and smiled back at her in the dark. 

Before following, he glanced at the door leading further into the warehouse. On a whim, he cast a fire mine just inside the entrance. It didn’t hurt to be safe. 

Seeker Pentaghast found a light switch by the door. The fluorescent strips in the ceiling buzzed to life, illuminating a kind of lab or workshop. A long bench along the back held a microscope and tools, piles of wires and electrical components, a soldering iron. Beside it, a large hood housed a chemical apparatus of assembled flasks and tubing. A chunk of red lyrium the size of his fist glowed from beneath a transparent dome. The ringing was back in his ears. 

A table in the center held cartons of glass vials. Owain pulled one and held it up to the light. It was filled with tiny granules of red lyrium that rolled and glittered like sand. He handed it to Seeker Pentaghast, who turned it in her fingers and frowned.

“Cullen, this is where they process it, too,” she said, turning on her phone to send video. “Lucius wasn’t wrong.”

“That’s exactly what we got from Denam this afternoon,” Rutherford observed. “That must be how they’re distributing rations.”

The Seeker continued around the room. 

“The electronics, there,” said Rutherford. She paused and brought the camera closer to the tools on the bench. “Those chips. I’ve seen that kind of thing before. It’s a remote fuse. Could be what they used to detonate the bomb at the Conclave.”

“By combining it with the red lyrium?” Owain asked.

“That’s the idea,” Rutherford replied. “I’d need to a closer look to be sure, but it’s our best theory at this point. Dagna says it’s an incredibly powerful substance.”

“No shit,” Owain breathed. “I can hear it in my fucking brain.”

Pentaghast opened her mouth to question, but at that moment, a loud bang went off outside the room, followed by a scream of pain. 

“My mine,” he said, his eyes meeting hers. They rushed toward the door to find a man in flames, writhing on the floor and rolling frantically to extinguish himself. Behind him in the doorway stood two more in Templar uniforms, their badges backed with red. Their faces were frozen in shock, but that didn’t last long. They pulled batons from their belts and rushed toward him and the Seeker. 

The first one reached Seeker Pentaghast and swung his weapon at her head. She dodged deftly around his swing and drove her elbow into his chin. He grunted and reeled, dropping his baton as she brought the butt of her pistol down hard on the side of his head. 

Maker, he loved watching her fight. But Owain had his own problem to deal with. He fade-stepped toward the second Templar, dropping a mine behind him and catching the Templar's arm, using the man's own momentum to throw him off balance. Owain stepped back and landed a swift kick to the back of his opponent's knees, causing him to stumble headfirst into the trap. He, too, fell in flames to the floor. 

“Go!” he shouted at Pentaghast, who had managed to drop her Templar, too. Owain flung a fireball at him, for good measure. They turned and headed toward the back door, even as their enemies were starting to recover. Owain cast a stone fist at their pursuers, bowling them off course and buying a little more time. 

“What’s happening?” Rutherford’s voice was frantic over the radio. “Do you need back-up?”

“No,” she hissed as they sprinted toward the exit. “We’re almost out.”

But no sooner had she said those words than the bright overhead lights clicked on, flooding the room and leaving them momentarily dazed. They halted where they were. The way out was now blocked by a wall of Red Templars. Owain counted at least five. They had their silencers out, pointed squarely in their direction. 

_Fuck._ He had a barrier ready but only a fraction of a second to choose. No time for second-guessing. No time to consider strategy or consequences. Only instinct and the heat of the moment. So he chose, and instead of casting it on himself, he turned and threw his spell at Seeker Pentaghast. 

An instant later, he felt the leads strike his chest, felt the terrible pulse of current. Blistering pain tore along his nerves, jerking his limbs uncontrollably. 

His vision flashed white. 

And then black. 

\---

“NO!”

Cassandra could feel the barrier fall shimmering over her like a veil, even as Trevelyan slumped to the floor. _Idiot! Why didn’t he cast it on himself?_

Templar-Lieutenant Denam advanced on her, and she steadied her aim. He seemed unconcerned. “Get him up,” he ordered over his shoulder. Two Templars rushed forward, hauling Trevelyan’s limp body from the concrete. 

“Are you really going to shoot us all?” he scoffed, turning his attention to her. “It’s over. Give me the gun.”

She didn’t move. 

“Don’t make me take it from you.”

She glared at Denam and his crew of Templars but grudgingly admitted he was right. There were too many of them. There was no winning this. She grunted in frustration and dropped the gun at her feet. 

He stooped to pick it up, raking his bloodshot gaze over her body as he rose slowly. He paused to look her in the eyes as he reached his full height. 

“Good girl,” he said softly, his face inches from hers.

She didn’t even think about it. Just pulled her arm back and decked him, her fist connecting with the side of his face. It felt good, but the satisfaction was fleeting. 

He looked stunned for a moment, bringing his fingers to his mouth. They came away bloody. He spat, and the mix of blood and saliva left a pink stain on the floor. 

“I still owed you from last time, bitch,” he growled. There was murder in his eyes. 

She clenched her fists and braced for a fight, but instead of coming closer, he turned and motioned to one of his men. They tossed him a bottle of water. He swished and spat a mouthful before pouring the rest over Trevelyan’s head. 

Trevelyan gasped into consciousness, blinking and shaking water from his face. Before he could get his feet under him, Denam stepped forward and drove his fist into his stomach. He grunted and doubled over, his legs buckling beneath him. The Templars holding his arms were the only thing keeping him from falling into a heap again. 

“That was for yesterday,” Denam sneered as his men pulled Trevelyan upright. Then he reared back and struck him across the face with a sickening smack of bone and flesh. Her stomach lurched as Trevelyan’s head snapped back. He reeled again, his feet scrabbling as he tried to regain his footing. 

“And that’s for your whore,” said Denam, shaking out his hand.

“Stop!” she yelled. “Don’t touch him.” She gritted out the words.

“Or what?” Denam grinned, bringing his face to hers once more. “You want to go again?” She snarled and readied her fists.

The door at the front of the room opened, and Seeker-Commander Corin entered, flanked by two more Templars. 

“Enough,” he said, his eyes sweeping the scene. “Stand down, Lieutenant. Have some respect for your betters.”

Denam curled his lip but slunk back to stand beside Trevelyan, whose head hung between his shoulders. Blood dripped from his nose. A drop hit the floor with a quiet splatter. 

“Cassandra,” Lucius drawled through a cold smile. “What a surprise. I didn’t think you’d be joining us this evening.”

He stepped toward Trevelyan, studying him impassively like some kind of specimen. “And what a gift you’ve brought us.” He reached out and grasped the badge that hung from a chain around Trevelyan’s neck, breaking it free with a rough jerk. 

Lucius examined the badge and chuckled to himself. “A Circle officer? Well done! What better way to show the people of March City that mages conspired to murder the Mayor? To overthrow the very fabric of our city with their treachery? Not merely a handful of rogue actors, but the mage government itself acts against us at the highest levels! What a story this will be!” 

In her mind, Cassandra knew that Lucius was corrupt, but the full depth of his depravity still shocked her in that moment. She could hardly believe these words were coming from a man she had followed for years. It took her a moment to find her voice. 

“No one will believe you,” she spat. “You have no evidence.”

“No?” Lucius countered. “There’s no disputing he was there. Multiple witnesses can attest to that, not to mention the video. He has documented affinity for the element used to cause the explosion. And his co-conspirator is rather conveniently dead, by his own hand. Are you so sure he’s innocent?”

She was momentarily thrown by his question. If she thought about it, was there any real proof to say that Trevelyan hadn’t been involved? She knew he didn’t do it, didn’t she? She looked at him, and uncertainty flickered in her eyes. 

Lucius laughed. “You see? You see how easy it is to cast doubt, even for you? How much easier will it be for the rest of our fair citizens? They will be much less… sympathetic, shall we say.”

Trevelyan lifted his head then. His eyes met hers, and their clarity pierced the fog of doubt the Seeker-Commander’s words had raised in her mind. _No,_ she reminded herself. _There were facts here. There was truth._ She shook her head to clear it and remembered their mission. She needed Lucius to talk. 

“You did this,” she said. “Why? Why Justinia? The mages, the Templars--your own men?”

“Sacrifices on the altar of progress,” Lucius replied. “Our city is broken, Cassandra. It decays to its very roots. We tried to create a better world, to bring order to the madness after the Blight, but look at us! Chaos reigns. We started a war that will never end, structures that are doomed to fail. It needs to be torn down and built anew.”

 _Pure madness. Keep him talking._ “What will you do with him?”

“With the mage? He will confess to everything, shortly. And once he has served his purpose, well... Such a dangerous man cannot simply be allowed to walk freely. He is an abomination waiting to happen. Surely you must agree, Seeker.”

One of his Templars handed him his Brand, a long-barrelled device like a super-charged silencer. Except this Tranquility was permanent. The tip glowed in a sunburst pattern. It was the blue of pure lyrium.

 _Worse than death._ She remembered Trevelyan’s words at her kitchen table. Was that only yesterday? And she suddenly realized that she hadn’t fully considered the danger she put him in by bringing him here. Had he? She looked at him. His eyes were cold and defiant, but the working of a muscle in his jaw hinted at the dread that must be coursing through his veins. His Adam’s apple bobbed as he swallowed. She could swear she felt the same fear choking at her own throat. 

“And what about me?” she asked hoarsely.

“You, my dear?” Lucius said, turning to her again. “Why, you are the very best of us, Cassandra. You will be a hero--again! Your name will be spoken on the lips of every Marcher. A tireless investigator, a true Seeker of Truth. 

“You did not believe the Warden was the true perpetrator of the Conclave disaster, oh no. You knew there was something deeper here, something much more sinister. Uncovering a terrible plot, apprehending the true culprit. You would not be led astray, even by the wiles of this madman. A believer, a righteous woman. Your reputation precedes you.”

She felt sick. Her stomach twisted with horror. All that she was, everything she had ever done was being used against her. Spun into lies. Lies that would see her city in flames, peace shattered, innocents slain. And Trevelyan…

The Templars had gathered around him. One had produced a camera and focused it on him as his captors propped him up straighter. Denam waved a sheet of paper full of print in his face. 

“You do know how to read, don’t you, magic boy?” Denam jeered, patting him on the cheek. “Do a good job and we might even let you live.”

Trevelyan fixed him with an icy stare and spat at the paper. “I guess you’re going to have to kill me.”

Denam drove his fist into his stomach again, making him crumple to his knees. It tore at her insides. Lucius stepped forward with the Brand. 

“What a shame,” he said, clicking his tongue with no real remorse. “No matter. There is plenty we can do without your cooperation, as our friend Tabris can attest. Or would, if you hadn’t done us the favor of disposing of him.”

Lucius activated the device. She could hear it charging. A high-pitched whirring, the lyrium glowing an even brighter blue. Trevelyan didn’t look at it. Instead, he fixed his gaze on her, and what she saw in his eyes nearly broke her heart. 

There was no more time. She reached behind her and prayed they had enough, that Lucius’s words would damn him to the Void. 

“Already on the way,” Cullen whispered in her ear. _Thank the Maker._

She looked at Trevelyan again and gave him the barest nod.

“You are right, Lucius,” she called out. He paused to listen, surprise on his face. “I am a believer. And I have faith in this city. We are not so lost that we cannot find our way again. And there are those of us who will always fight back.”

Lucius simply laughed and turned back to Trevelyan, ready to perform the Tranquility. She pulled the gun from her belt and shot twice, hitting him in the leg. He fell and cried out in pain as she rushed forward. Denam drew his weapon and leveled it at her. His shots did nothing but bring down the barrier still active around her. She crashed into him shoulder-first, knocking him to the floor. 

From the corner of her eye, she could see that Trevelyan had used the diversion to wrench himself free of the Templars. He grabbed the Brand from Lucius’s weakened grasp and swung it in a wide arc, striking one of the Templars in the head and forcing the other back with the threat of charged lyrium. 

She missed whatever happened next. She was too busy pinning Denam to the ground, pummelling him with her fists. 

She felt a tug at her arm. It was Trevelyan, urging her to get up. They sprinted toward the nearest row of crates and threw themselves behind it. Bullets thudded into the wood. 

She crouched and peered over the edge. There were six Templars remaining. Trevelyan sat beside her, leaning back against a crate. He clutched at his side and grimaced with pain. She squeezed off a couple rounds at Templars who attempted to break cover. 

“How many shots do you have left?” Trevelyan asked, as if reading her mind.

“Not enough,” she replied. She looked at him sadly. “I’m sorry.”

He shook his head and gave her a tired smile. “No. You got him.”

She couldn’t help smirking, in spite of everything. 

“We,” she corrected. 

A metallic ping near the back door turned their heads. A grenade came flying overhead and landed in the center of the room, where it burst into smoke. A shout went up among the Templars, drowned out by the rapid stomp of many pairs of feet. 

A voice rang out. “Freeze! Drop your weapons!” 

Then the clatter of guns hitting the floor. And blessed silence.

Cullen found them. He lowered his gun and raised his mask with a sigh. “Maker’s breath, it’s good to see you alive. I was afraid I was too late.” He offered his hand to help her up. She didn’t need it, so he extended it to Trevelyan, who took it and still clasped it even after he reached his feet. 

“Thank you,” he said before letting go. Cullen nodded his respect in return.

“You didn’t wait for my signal,” she said with a bit of a smile. Relief made her playful. 

Cullen shot her an exasperated look. He turned and took in the rows of crates that surrounded them. “Are these all full of red lyrium?”

Cassandra nodded, leading him to the box they had opened earlier and lifting the top to show him firsthand. 

Hard to tell if it was the lyrium, or the silencing, or simply pain and exhaustion catching up to him, but Trevelyan swayed on his feet.

She reached out and caught him, before he could hit the ground. 

\---

She followed the flashing lights to the ambulance parked in the yard. There she found Trevelyan, perched on the open end of the vehicle. His legs hung over the rear bumper as an EMT checked his vitals. He held a cold pack over his temple. When he noticed her, he smirked and tipped it at her in an odd kind of salute. 

She waited until the tech bustled off to check on the other injured before drawing closer. 

“Are you ok?” she asked. Her eyes roved over the fresh cuts and bruises that now marked his face.

“Nothing that won’t heal,” he replied with a wry twist of his mouth.

“And your magic?”

He answered by balling his free hand and opening it, conjuring a small flame that danced in his palm. He looked at her softly in the flickering light. In another time and place, it might have been romantic. 

She frowned and shook her head. “You should have put the barrier on yourself.”

“I know,” he said with a slow smile. 

Somehow, she was standing close enough that his knees grazed her legs. She touched his face, running her thumb along the old scar on his cheek. He covered her hand with his and held it there, closing his eyes for a moment. She made to pull it back, but he caught it and held her fast, bending to brush his lips against her knuckles. 

She inhaled a quick breath and looked at him. There was warmth and respect and laughter in his eyes. She wondered at the curious way he made her feel like they were the only ones in the world that mattered. Everything else seemed to fade into the background. 

His eyes focused on something over her shoulder, and his expression changed, suddenly serious. He lowered his hand and let her fingers slip from his. She turned to see what had stolen his attention. A man and a woman were walking purposefully in their direction. They were clad in dark suits. Clipped to their lapels were badges that looked just like his. 

He sat straighter, returning the cold pack to his face. 

“Maybe I should go,” she suggested. 

“Yeah,” he agreed. He sighed and pressed his lips together. “I’m sorry, Cassandra.” She just nodded and walked away.

It occurred to her a few steps later that maybe she should have said goodbye. She turned back, but he was busy with the Circle agents now. A twinge of disappointment plucked at her heart.

But then she reminded herself that it didn’t really matter. She would probably never see him again anyway. 

\---

The police raided Lucius’s office in the early hours of the morning. With the findings in Kirkwall and Cassandra’s recording, Leliana had plenty of evidence to work with. Enough to send the ex-Seeker-Commander away for a very long time. 

In the aftermath, however, the Red Templars had gone underground. The police found records of other bases, but subsequent searches turned up empty. 

At last, Cassandra sat down at her kitchen table with her book and her glass of wine. But now that she had the time, reading was the last thing she wanted to do. 

All it did was remind her of him. His grey eyes twinkling at her from across the table. His smirk as he held the book out of reach. 

Her fingers played idly along her collarbone as she re-lived that first kiss in the elevator, then the ones that came after. Her pulse quickened as she thought about the way he’d touched her, the way he’d said her name. Just the memory made her shiver a little. 

She put the book facedown on the table and pulled out her phone. She scrolled to his name in her contacts. She could call him. It would be so easy.

But what would she say? She cringed, remembering how she had turned him out of her bed. Would things have ended differently if she hadn’t? Would he be here with her now?

Maybe he would come over. She would open the door to find him standing there with a bouquet of flowers. Roses, she decided. She would pull him inside, and he would wrap her in his arms, hold her flush to him. He would press searing kisses to her lips, to her jaw, to her neck. She would taste him again, feel his heat on her skin. Her hands would run up his shoulders, and his would skim down her arms, clever fingers brushing and teasing, asking, demanding. Down they would go, over her breasts, to her hips, and beyond…

The buzzing of her phone startled her. She blinked at it for a second, surfacing reluctantly from her reverie. Her heart skipped with hope that maybe it was him. But it wasn’t. It was Josie. 

_Turn on your TV._

She frowned at the oddness of the request but got up and walked into her living room. She found the remote and did as she was asked. 

The blinking red symbol in the corner of the screen told her this was live. Leliana stood on a podium on the steps of City Hall, flanked by Josephine and a handful of aides. 

_“...has been a difficult time for our city. In an act of senseless violence, we lost our beloved Mayor and visionary leaders who sought peace and understanding between those blessed with magical talent and those of us who are not. We have been betrayed by those who ought to have had our trust, who swore vows to protect our city and broke them._

_But, my fellow Marchers, let us not lose hope. Let us honor Mayor Divine and those we lost at the Conclave and not let their work go unfinished. To that end, I hereby declare the formation of an Inquisition Task Force that will root out corruption in our city and bring it into the light. We will restore peace and justice. We will lay the foundations for a better March City, one where all people are welcome, whether human, elf, or dwarf, whether mage or not. And I invite all who share in that dream to join me.”_

The crowd erupted into applause and a flurry of shouted questions. The camera flipped to an anchor in the studio who narrated over the scene. 

_Questions remain about the scope of the newly formed Task Force and the reach of the DA’s authority following today’s announcement. Critics have already called it a power grab ahead of next month’s mayoral special election._

_In other election news, March City billionaire Cor Amladaris announced his intention today to challenge DA Nightingale for the mayorship, citing the need for a stricter ‘law and order’ approach to city governance. Amladaris has already secured several key endorsements, including that of the embattled Grey Wardens…_

The phone buzzed again in her hand. 

_Tomorrow. 9am._

\---

At five minutes to nine, Cassandra pushed open the heavy door of the conference room on the top floor of City Hall. Leliana and Josephine sat at the head of the large rectangular table. She greeted them and then scanned the rest of the room. 

There were others she knew. Cullen, of course, nodded to her from across the table before resuming his conversation with Rylen, who sat beside him. Further down, a dwarf she recognized from the press corps adjusted his glasses and scribbled into his notebook. And on a corner at the far end, Trevelyan. 

He was slouched low in his chair, one elbow propped on the table, dragging his thumbnail slowly across his lower lip. She was fairly certain he had noticed her before she did him, fairly certain he’d noticed the moment she walked in. 

He smirked as their eyes met across the room. His face was still bruised, his left eye ringed in an angry shade of purple. But she hardly noticed. She let her mouth twitch at him in response, which cracked his into a handsome full grin. He swiveled in his chair and hooked a foot around the one beside him, pulling it out and away from the table. Then he flicked his eyes back to her. An invitation and a challenge. 

She fought her smile the whole length of the room, until she sank down into that chair. She turned to him and gave it up as a lost cause, all her armor suddenly useless against the lure of that deep, limitless grey, like a clear sky at dusk. 

Leliana called the room to order with a tap on her microphone, and only then did he look away. But before he did, he slid a cup of coffee across the smooth tabletop and flashed her one last smirk. 

She picked up the coffee and took a sip. It was, as expected, exactly how she liked it.


End file.
